Farouk Arnaz – The National Police believe they have finally found the person responsible for the celebrity sex video scandal that has outraged the country's conservatives and landed a pop star in jail.
National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Edward Aritonang announced on Friday that the three widely circulated sex videos of Peterpan frontman Nazril "Ariel" Irham were uploaded on the Internet after being stolen from his laptop by the band's music editor.
"The videos were uploaded by 'RJ' who works with Ariel's band. He's a music editor," Edward said. "RJ obtained the tapes from Ariel's laptop, without Ariel's consent or knowledge."
Edward said the police were still investigating RJ's motive after his arrest in Bandung. "RJ is the 10th suspect arrested for allegedly spreading the videos to the public. All of the suspects are already in police custody," he said.
Police had been hunting the person who first uploaded the videos since the scandal broke in early June. Ariel maintained that somebody had stolen his laptop from his home on Jalan Tanjung Asri, in the Antapani area of Bandung, last year.
RJ's arrest, however, does not mean that Ariel and the two women in the videos, actress and model Luna Maya, and gossip show host Cut Tari, who have both been named as suspects, are off the hook.
Ariel has been charged under Article 4, Paragraph 1 of the controversial 2008 Anti-Pornography Law, which bans the production, distribution and trade of pornographic materials. Even if he did not distribute the videos, he can still be charged for producing pornography.
The same goes for Luna and Cut Tari. Edward rejected the argument that the women were only victims. "They can say they're victims, but we can prove from the scenes in the videos that they knew what was going on," he said, adding that the case reports were almost complete and would be handed over to prosecutors soon.
But Eddy Hiariej, a law lecturer at Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, has argued that a supplementary explanation of the Anti-Pornography Law excludes production for personal and private possession.
Edward also clarified the confusion over Luna's supposed arrest on Thursday. "It's true that on Thursday morning we said Luna would be arrested for being uncooperative, but we canceled the arrest based on our own considerations," he said.
He denied that public pressure was a factor in the police's seemingly inconsistent decision-making in Luna's custody. "We will not be influenced by public pressure. We work according to the law," he said.