News, Articles & Reviews

Jakarta, (ANTARA News) - The leader of the Islam Defenders' Front (FPI), Habib Rizieq Shihab, refused to sign an arrest warrant served on him by police before he was taken into custody on Thursday, his lawyer said.

"Habib Rizieq has officially become a police detainee as of today at 11 am but he has refused to sign the arrest warrant," Ari Yusuf Amir, the lawyer, said here on Thursday after accompanying the FPI leader during questioning at the Jakarta Police Headquarters.

The lawyer said Rizieq was not willing to sign the arrest warrant because he was in fact not detained nor summoned by the Jakarta Police. Rizieq said he had come to the Jakarta Police HQ at his own initiative.

The FPI leader had also rejected the formal charges the police had leveled against him, Amir said.

The police had based their charges on Penal Code articles 170 on mass assault, 156 on instigating, 221 on hiding fugitives and 351 on severe torture.

The Jakarta Police were holding Habib Rizieq in a part of their detention center reserved for illicit drug criminals, the FPI leader's lawyer said.

Apart from Rizieq, police had also arrested 12 FPI members but they had yet to be put in cells as they were still undergoing questioning by police investigators.

"Some of the 12 FPI members also refused to sign the arrest warrants but several others did sign. I don't remember their names," Amir said.

Habib Rizieq and six FPI members were named suspects and arrested by the Jakarta Police over Sunday's incident at the National Monument (Monas) in central Jakarta.

"Seven FPI people, including Habib Rizieq, have been named suspects. So we are detaining them as of today,," spokesman of the Jakarta Police Headquarters Senior Commissioner Ketut Untung Yoga Ana said here on Thursday.

Source