Amnesty: Military Involvement in Coal Case Damages Legal Supremacy

Amnesty International Indonesia’s Executive Director, Usman Hamid, has stated that the deployment of dozens of soldiers in a law enforcement operation by the Metro Jaya Police is eroding legal and civilian supremacy. Dozens of troops were deployed to guard the home of the Junior Attorney General for Special Crimes (Jampidsus), Febrie Adriansyah, and to visit the Metro Jaya Police headquarters after police investigators searched 12 locations on 8 July 2026 linked to alleged corruption in coal governance. “Military involvement in law enforcement, as seen in the search of Jampidsus Febrie Adriansyah’s residence, raises serious concerns about the erosion of civilian supremacy, the rule of law, and human rights,” Usman said in a written statement on 9 July 2026. In addition to the guard at Febrie’s house, dozens of people in camouflage uniforms carrying long-barrelled weapons visited the Metro Jaya Police Headquarters in the early hours of Thursday morning. Usman said this incident cannot be viewed merely as friction between law enforcement and security apparatuses, but demonstrates how the military is being used as a tool to protect officials suspected of involvement in corruption cases and to intimidate other law enforcement officers. “This damages the integrity and credibility of all institutions, whether the police, the prosecutor’s office, and especially the military,” he said. According to Usman, the presence of dozens of soldiers at the home of Febrie Adriansyah, which is allegedly linked to the coal governance corruption case, shows the military taking over a role that should be the domain of civilian law enforcement. This action constitutes a violation of the principle of separating the military’s role in defence from the police and prosecutor’s office’s role in law enforcement. Usman stressed that the coal corruption case has a direct detrimental impact on the public. The electricity crisis in various regions, which is allegedly rooted in this corruption, is a violation of the public’s right to an adequate standard of living. He affirmed that this right is explicitly guaranteed in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), which Indonesia ratified through Law No. 11 of 2005. “Given the magnitude of the public loss, law enforcement in this case must proceed transparently, objectively, and free from obstacles and intervention,” he said. Usman also questioned the TNI Headquarters’ pretext of using Presidential Regulation Number 66 of 2025 concerning the protection of prosecutors as the basis for guarding the Jampidsus’s home. According to him, this deployment of troops instead indicates a threat of remilitarisation in the realm of civilian law enforcement, as the military’s presence constitutes intimidation and inappropriate intervention. “The military has absolutely no jurisdiction to interfere, especially if such actions obstruct the judicial process,” Usman said. Usman stated that normative statements from the Attorney General’s Office, the National Police, and the TNI are insufficient to explain this situation. He stressed that the public has a right to information regarding the military deployment in this case. He reminded the state that it must ensure military institutions do not overstep their bounds. Furthermore, the coal corruption case must be investigated thoroughly, and whoever the perpetrators are must be processed criminally without military intervention. Earlier, dozens of soldiers were seen guarding the home of the Junior Attorney General for Special Crimes, Febrie Adriansyah, in South Jakarta on Wednesday evening, 8 July 2026. This tight security coincided with a search of the residence after the Police’s Corruption Eradication Corps, together with the Metro Jaya Police, searched a café in South Jakarta to investigate the alleged coal governance corruption. The police are investigating the coal governance corruption because it is suspected of causing disruptions to the coal supply and impacting power outages in several regions of Indonesia. Police also searched a luxury house in the Sentul area, Bogor, at midnight on Wednesday, which is suspected to belong to Jampidsus Febrie Adriansyah. Following the search, dozens of uniformed TNI personnel armed with long-barrelled weapons arrived at the Metro Jaya Police’s Special Criminal Investigation Directorate in several private vehicles in the early hours of Thursday. The Attorney General’s Office denied that the presence of TNI personnel at the Jampidsus’s home was related to the police search. Similar denials were also issued by the National Police Headquarters and the Metro Jaya Police. Meanwhile, the TNI Headquarters stated that the soldiers guarding the Jampidsus’s residence were deployed at the request of the Attorney General’s Office, citing Presidential Regulation Number 66 of 2025 concerning the protection of prosecutors in carrying out their duties. The TNI Headquarters also denied that its personnel came to the Metro Jaya Police Headquarters armed.