T

he police’s investigation into online pornography allegations involving the firebrand leader of the Islam Defenders Front (FPI), Rizieq Shihab, has suffered a setback as the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) has declared the case’s dossier to be incomplete.

On Wednesday, the AGO held a case exposé, inviting the Jakarta Police’s special crime investigation department to determine the completeness of the case’s dossier, which was submitted by the police on May 29.

The dossier is that of Firza Husein, a treason suspect, who allegedly exchanged pornographic material via WhatsApp messenger.

The office’s junior prosecutor for general crimes, Noor Rahmad, said that Firza’s dossier was still incomplete and it would be immediately returned to the police.

“From the exposé, we conclude that the dossier has not been completed enough to be taken to court. The police should complete several things first,” he said.

Noor said that the dossier still lacked “material and formal” requirements and the police should complete them within two weeks.

Jakarta police spokesman Sr. Comr. Argo Yuwono said that the police would complete Firza’s dossier after receiving the prosecutors’ official letter, which stated that the dossier was “P-19”, the official term for “incomplete.”

Meanwhile, the police would complete Rizieq’s dossier after he returned to Indonesia, Argo said.

“We’re still waiting for suspect HRS [Habib Rizieq Shihab] to come back to the country. There is some important information that we need to complete the dossier,” Argo said.

The captured WhatsApp chats containing pornographic material believed to have involved Rizieq and Firza surfaced in late January and the police started investigating the case in early February.

However, the police named Rizieq, who had failed to answer two police summonses and has stayed in Saudi Arabia since late April, a suspect on May 29, two weeks after they named Firza a pornography suspect.

Despite Rizieq and Firza’s denial of the authenticity of the chats, the police said that Rizieq and Firza had violated the 2008 Pornography Law, which carries a maximum sanction of 12 years in prison.

Argo added that the police were urging Rizieq to come back to the country and submit to the legal process so that the cleric could set a good example for other people.

Currently, members of the international division of the national police are reviewing Rizieq’s case to decide whether they need to request Interpol issue a Red Notice to allow other countries to arrest Rizieq and extradite him.

Besides the notice, “police to police” or “government to government” communications could be conducted to bring Rizieq back to the country, Argo said.

Rizieq is now staying in Saudi Arabia on an umrah (minor haj) visa that will expire on June 12.

Sugito Atmo Prawiro, Rizieq’s lawyer, said that his client would apply for a long stay visa in Saudi Arabia because he felt that he was a victim of persecution.

Sugito said that the lawyers were currently preparing strategies to face the legal process and they could not confirm when Rizieq would return to Jakarta.