April 11, 2018 is exactly 1 year after the assault against KPK investigator Novel Baswedan. A year ago, in the early hours of the morning, Novel was attacked by two unknown motorists who splashed acid on Novel's face. The incident resulted in damage to Novel's eye, which until now still has to undergo a series of medical treatments in Singapore.

One year later, there has been no significant development of the Novel attack case by the police. Novel himself revealed that it is unfortunate that the police did not follow up the written information provided, which amounted to 9 sheets of paper. In addition, CCTV recordings at the scene of the incident has not been checked by the police.

In addition to the information provided by Novel himself, the Novel Baswedan Advocacy team has also released a number of findings on discrepancies from 52 days to 6 months after the Novel attack. But unfortunately these findings have not been followed up quickly by the police. The police claimed that they could not identify the fingerprints from the glass or mug used by the offenders. This is because the fingerprints left on the handle of the mug are too small to identify the owner.

The Novel Baswedan Advocacy Team also reviewed a number of criminal cases handled by police with CCTV evidence, similar to the Novel case. The advocacy team found a pattern of obtaining CCTV evidence of the criminal offense to obtain information from the public. But in the case of Novel, it was not done by the police.

The police’s achievements have been far from significant indeed. While the police had released sketches of the suspects’ faces in November 2017 and published a hotline number that could be contacted by the public if they had information related to the Novel attacker, until now, there has been no information of any developments from the police.

Not only the police seemed to be unwilling to reveal the perpetrators of the attack, President Jokowi also behaved similarly. The President has stated that he would only act if the Chief of Police had raised his hand in handling this case. The attitude of the President is certainly deplorable. The dragged handling of the Novel Baswedan case should be evaluated by the President, and then the President could take important steps to encourage disclosure of the case, and not just wait for the Chief of Police surrender.

Meanwhile, the civil society coalition and the Novel Baswedan Advocacy Team continue to urge President Jokowi to form an Independent Joint Fact Finding Team (TGPF). They urged the President not to wait for the Chief of Police, but the President must show that he is serious about this case and shows his allegiance to the anti-corruption movement. (Dewi/Adnan)