Jakarta – Police have yet to issue a so-called red notice for Islam Defenders Front (FPI) leader Rizieq Shihab, who is a suspect in a pornography case.
Rizieq is believed to have left Indonesia for Jeddah in Saudi Arabia for the minor haj with his family on April 27 and has not returned since.
A red notice is issued by Interpol, usually in response to a request by a national government to seek the location and arrest of a wanted person with a view to his or her extradition.
"We don't have any more information about [a red notice] from the National Police's international relations division," Jakarta Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Argo Yuwono told reporters on Monday. Urging reporters to "just wait for it," he said the division had held a meeting on the matter with the police's supervision and investigation body.
Argo also added that police were still investigating to decide whether to send a team to Jeddah to bring Rizieq back to Indonesia or just rely on coordination with police in Saudi Arabia. "We still hope that he will return home," Argo said.
Separately, the spokesman of the Justice and Human Rights Ministry's directorate general of immigration, Agung Sampurno, denied Rizieq's lawyer claim that his client had an unlimited visa from Saudi Arabia.
"There is no such thing as a life-long visa. There must be a limit to it," Agung said on Monday, as quoted by kompas.com. (hol)