After `great escape', FPI chief now wallows in Salemba jail
Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Supporters of Islam Defender's Front (FPI) chairman Habib Rizieq Shihab mortified the city police and the prosecutors's office on Monday when they managed to whisk away Rizieq from the latter's offices on Jl. Rasuna Said, South Jakarta, under the bewildered gaze of security officers.
Despite his dramatic "rescue", Rizieq turned himself in later on in the evening at the Salemba detention center on Jl. Salemba Raya, Central Jakarta, where he will be detained while awaiting trial.
Rizieq was snatched from the clutches of the law by hundreds of FPI members at around 11.30 a.m., right in front of security personnel -- both from the police and the prosecutors' office -- who were unable or unwilling to do anything to stop the devoted FPI members springing their man.
They made good their dramatic escape in a P-20 Kopaja bus they had hijacked on its way to Senen in Central Jakarta from Lebak Bulus in South Jakarta.
The incident occurred only hours after Rizieq was arrested by city police on Sunday evening at Soekarno-Hatta airport as he arrived back from Jordan.
The Muslim cleric was declared a fugitive after he had ignored two police summonses. The FPI leader reportedly traveled to Iraq through Jordan, ostensibly to wage jihad against U.S. troops. But he claimed he had only been involved in humanitarian activities to help the victims of the war.
After having briefly waged jihad, he decided to come home again.
Rizieq's "great escape" occurred shortly after he had been transferred by the city police to the city prosecutors' office for further legal processing after the police had completed his case file.
The cleric was charged under articles 160 and 154 of the Criminal Code for encouraging FPI members to vandalize a number of entertainment centers in early October last year, and for spreading hatred against the government. He now faces a maximum sentence of seven years in jail.
The FPI has long been notorious for its frenzied attacks on entertainment centers and other places they suspect of being covers for gambling and other forms of vice.
The police had previously detained Rizieq, but then released him and placed him under house arrest last November on condition that he reported to the police every Monday and Thursday.
Commenting prior to Rizieq's surrender, the city police's chief of detectives, Sr. Comr. Andi Chaeruddin, strongly criticized Rizieq's supporters, saying that their action was a serious breach of the law.
"If every group in society was to do what Habib Rizieq's supporters have done, what would happen to our country?" Andi commented to The Jakarta Post on Monday.
Andi, however, refused to take the blame for the incident, saying that the Rizieq case had become the prosecutors' responsibility after it had been handed over to them by the police.
Rizieq arrived at Salemba detention center at 4:45 p.m. on Monday in a private Mazda E 2000 car. He was escorted by dozens of FPI members, all yelling Allahu Akbar (God is great).
Rizieq claimed that his detention was the result of a conspiracy between the police and the operators of illegal gambling dens.
Commenting on the action by his supporters, he said he had allowed the FPI members to spirit him away from the prosecutors as he knew it was a protest against what he termed his unjust detention.
According to Rizieq, he had returned from Jordan to comply with the police summonses. "If I wanted to, I could have sought asylum and lived in Jordan," he said optimistically, as quoted by Detik.com.
Jakarta prosecutors' office chief Muljohardjo said that he had set up a team of prosecutors to handle the Rizieq case. The three members of the team were Sandi, Hasan Basri and Teuku Rachman.