Jakarta – Mustofa Nahrawardaya, the IT division head for losing presidential pair Prabowo Subianto and Sandiaga Uno, has been arrested for falsely claiming that the police had beaten a 15-year-old boy to death, his lawyer confirmed on Monday.
"Earlier this morning, at around 2:30 a.m., Mustofa was detained by the National Police's Cyber Crime division," Mustofa's lawyer, Djudju Purwantoro, said as quoted by kompas.com.
He was charged for allegedly violating Article 28(2) of the Electronic Information and Transactions (ITE) Law on hate speech and Article 14(2) of Law No. 1/1946 of the Criminal Code on misinformation.
Mustofa was arrested after tweeting about a viral video that shows police brutality during Jakarta riot that shows Mobile Brigade (Brimob) officers beating up an unidentified man in front of the Al Huda Mosque in Tanah Abang, Central Jakarta, shortly after rioting occurred nearby.
In his tweet, Mustofa claimed that the victim was a 15-year-old boy named Harun who later died from his injuries.
While police have admitted that the events in the video had taken place, they claim the man depicted was, in fact, an adult named Andri Bibir, who is still alive.
Andri appeared in a press conference at the National Police headquarters on Saturday and admitted that he was the man in the video.
Meanwhile, The Jakarta Post confirmed that a 15-year-old named Muhammad Harun Rasyid was among the people killed during the riots, though his cause of death remains unknown.
Mustofa is listed as an executive on Islamic mass organization Muhammadiyah's library and information council (MPI), but Muhammadiyah leadership said he was not actively involved in the organization.
"As the general secretary said, [Mustofa] is no longer a de facto executive," Muhmmadiyah MPI deputy chairman Ahmad Najib Burhani tweeted on Monday. (kmt)