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Yosua murder turns political as House steps in
Lawmakers criticize a senior minister for being too open about the investigation surrounding the murder of a police officer, while a security analyst mulls the likely involvement of "dirty politicians".
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National Police Commission (Kompolnas) chief Mahfud MD (right) and National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) chairman Ahmad Taufan Damanik (left) attend a meeting at House of Representatives' Commission III overseeing legal affairs at the House complex in Senayan, Central Jakarta, on Monday. The meeting was held to discuss the charging of former police internal affairs division chief Insp. Gen. Ferdy Sambo of the murder of Brig. Nofriansyah Yosua Hutabarat. (Antara/Muhammad Adimaja)
T
he murder of a low-ranking police officer, allegedly by his own commanding officer, the head of the National Police’s internal affairs department (Propam), has taken on a political bent, following a House of Representatives meeting on Monday that saw a senior minister branded too indiscreet in regard to the case and a call for the police chief to be suspended.
The high-profile criminal case, which a police watchdog has labeled “the biggest scandal to have emerged in the institution’s history”, has roped in no less than 80 officers in an investigation spanning ethics violations, obstruction of justice and interference in a crime scene.
Public faith in the National Police is believed to have hit a historic low, as the cover-up scandal in the murder of Brig. Nofriansyah Yosua Hutabarat allegedly at the hands of Insp. Gen. Ferdy Sambo widens into allegations of elite factionalism within the force and institutional complicity in the shadowy underworld of illegal gambling.
According to a set of diagrams circulating widely in the public sphere, Ferdy and a number of high-ranking officers were allegedly involved in a recently disbanded special task force that operated as an illegal online gambling ring. The task force was set up in 2016 by then-police chief Gen. Tito Karnavian, who now serves as home minister in the Joko Widodo administration.
While the role of the task force was among the biggest of revelations to come out of the investigation, The Jakarta Post has not been able to independently verify the contents of the document, and several figures named therein have pleaded innocence or non-complicity.
Read also: Police image in tatters as murder scandal widens
‘Collective conspiracy’
