Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama is today being questioned by the National Police’s Crime Investigation Unit (Bareskrim) for the first time since last week when he was named a suspect in a case of alleged blasphemy brought against him by Muslim groups.
Given the intense public scrutiny of the case, the police are clearly taking the investigation extremely seriously, with four highly-ranked police grand commissioners tasked with Ahok’s questioning today. The identities of Ahok’s interrogators were not revealed to the public.
“The National Police’s investigators will work to our utmost abilities to make sure that this case is handled in accordance to the directive of the National Police Chief,” said National Police Spokesman Grand Commissioner Rikwanto, as quoted by Warta Kota.
“Hopefully, in one or two weeks, the investigation can be concluded so that it can be handed over to prosecutors.”
Ahok arrived at National Police Headquarters at around 9am today. According to Rikwanto, Ahok’s questioning should take around 9 hours.
The National Police say they have already questioned 24 witnesses in relation to Ahok’s case including religious and linguistic experts. The police noted that the witnesses could not reach a consensus on whether or not Ahok had in fact committed blasphemy by saying that some people had been using the Islamic holy book of Quran to fool people into not voting for him in the upcoming 2017 gubernatorial election.
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