“The judges’ decision to give my attackers light sentences only shows that the administration does not stand behind those who have fought against corruption in the country,” he said in a statement on Thursday night.

 

The North Jakarta District Court sentenced Novel’s attackers, police officers Brig. Rahmat Kadir Mahulette and Chief Brig. Ronny Bugis, to two years and 18 months in prison, respectively, late on Thursday.

 

The panel of judges declared both men guilty of violating Article 353 of the Criminal Code on persecution causing serious injury or death, which carries a maximum sentence of nine years in prison upon conviction.

 

Their sentences, however, are still longer than the one year’s imprisonment initially demanded by prosecutors during a June 11 court session.

 

Commenting on the sentence, Novel feared that his fellow antigraft investigators would be vulnerable to similar forms of intimidation and attacks when attempting to seek justice.

 

He added that he was not upset about the verdict because he felt the entire trial had been filled with irregularities since it started on March 19.

 

Novel initially hoped the court would reveal the motive behind his attack, believing it was related to his investigation into certain high-profile corruption cases, including a bribery case pertaining to beef import quotas that implicated former Constitutional Court justice Patrialis Akbar.

 

But he said his hopes faded when the court failed to summon important witnesses to testify and when both attackers claimed under oath to have “accidentally” thrown the acid at him.

 

“I sense that every [court] session was staged. They seemed to have been designed to fail to give me justice,” Novel said. “I’m only afraid that my fellow antigraft officers will face a similar situation in the future when dealing with persecution.”

 

In the verdict, the panel of judges said it had been proven that Rahmat had prepared and thrown a mixture of battery acid and water in Novel’s face as the KPK investigator was walking home from dawn prayers at a mosque in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, on April 11, 2017.

 

The panel of judges also said that Rahmat had ridden on a motorcycle driven by Ronny to carry out the attack.

 

Even after undergoing surgery and intensive treatment at a hospital in Singapore, Novel became blind in his left eye as a result of the attack while retaining 50 percent of his vision in his right eye.

 

Amnesty International Indonesia director Usman Hamid said that while the sentences were more severe than the prosecutors’ initial demand, they still failed to evince justice to the public, calling the legal proceedings akin to “a low-quality drama”.

 

“Irregularities could be seen starting from the legal process carried out by the police, which was slow and lacked transparency — as if they were playing games,” Usman said in a statement published on Friday, adding that people involved in the case who were not from the police had lost their objectivity because of their close connection to police higher-ups.

 

“These legal theatrics do not give justice to Novel Baswedan and the Indonesian people who were affected by corruption,” he continued.

 

“This is one of the worst precedents for law enforcement in Indonesia because it eliminates punishment for the real perpetrators and negates the protection of anticorruption officials with integrity.”

 

Andi Muhammad Rezaldy of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) said the government needed to step up its efforts in finding the motive and mastermind behind the attack, adding that any persecution of antigraft investigators was akin to a threat to the country’s fight against corruption.

 

Andi, who is also a member of Novel’s advocacy team, urged the President to establish an independent fact-finding team that could uncover new facts in Novel’s case.

 

“The President should put more concern on ensuring the personal security of law enforcement officers, including the victim [Novel],” Andi told The Jakarta Post.

 

Novel’s lawyer, Kurnia Ramadhana, said in an earlier statement that the President had “failed in guaranteeing the safety of his citizens, given that the National Police and the Attorney General’s Office are directly under the President, adding to that the fact that the victim is a law [enforcement agent]."

 

Commenting on the case, Jokowi said through presidential spokesperson for legal affairs Dini Purwono on June 18 that he would not intervene in the legal proceedings but hoped the judges would hand down a fair verdict.