TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) investigator Novel Baswedan on Monday admits that he suffered from breathing failure after he was struck with liquid acid to the face back in 2017.

“The fact is that I had respiratory failure. I was fortunate enough to be assisted and had water less than 20 seconds after I was attacked with liquid acid,” said Novel Baswedan in an online discussion on Monday.

Novel maintained that many cases of liquid acid assaults would end up with death and strongly believes that his attackers should have been charged with Article 340 of the Criminal Code (KUHP) Article 53 on attempted murder.

However, he said that his inputs were never followed up properly; “The assault was planned, that is considered as a severe assault that caused severe injuries and should have been incriminatory as I was working as an apparatus within the KPK law enforcement agency,” Novel Baswedan insisted.

The public prosecutors eventually charged Novel’s attackers under Article 170 of the Criminal Code on assault and mistreatment, which bewildered Novel as the prosecutors had chosen the lightest punishment to charge the defendants.

“If [the charges] were chosen intentionally, Article 170 will see the defendants free. Because the law requires the two people to commit it simultaneously. But at the time, only one perpetrated the attack while the other was the getaway motorcycle driver,” said Novel Baswedan. “But the defendants are the ones who were considered to be state apparatus and must be facilitated because of it. That is a backward way of thinking.”

EGI ADYATAMA