The Trip Of Rizieq Shihab's Mesum Chat Case That Was Stopped

JAKARTA - The alleged case of immoral chat involving former FPI High Priest Rizieq Shihab and Firza Husein is currently still under police investigation. However, this case has been going on for about four years and was discontinued.

This case began around 2017. At that time, screenshots were spread showing the conversation between Rizieq and Firza. Where, even that conversation contains elements of pornography.

So, the police, in this case the Polda Metro Jaya, immediately handled the case. Before long, Rizieq and Firza were named as suspects.

They are charged with Article 4 paragraph 1 in conjunction with Article 29 and/or Article 6 in conjunction with Article 32 and/or Article 8 in conjunction with Article 34 of Law Number 44 of 2008 concerning Pornography and Article 27 paragraph 1 in conjunction with Article 45 paragraph 1 of Law Number 19 of 2016 on Information and Electronic Transactions (ITE).

After Rizieq and Firza became suspects, the investigation process was still ongoing. But a year later, the case was dismissed.

The reason is that investigators did not find the perpetrators of spreading the pornographic content. The termination of the handling of the case was based on the results of the case title.

"There was an official request from the lawyer for SP3, by letter. After that, a case was carried out. So the case was stopped because according to investigators the uploader of the case had not been found," said the Head of the Public Relations Division of the Police, who at that time held Inspector General M. Iqbal.

In the end, the investigation of this case was completely stopped. Rizieq's status as a suspect has also died for the sake of the law.

Several years later, in 2020, the South Jakarta District Court decided to revoke the Order to Terminate Investigation (SP3) in the immoral chat case allegedly involving Rizieq Shihab and Firza Husein. Therefore, the investigation of this case will continue.

The decision to revoke SP3 is based on the results of the pretrial lawsuit. Where, the panel of judges granted the lawsuit registered with number 151/Pid.Prap/2020/PN.Jkt.Sel.

The pretrial lawsuit was filed by Jefri Azhar. He was a reporter for a nasty chat case at the Polda Metro Jaya in 2017.

A few months after the court officially revoked the SP3 for the nasty chat case, the Metro Jaya Police Chief Inspector General Fadil Imran stated that the handling process was continuing. His status is still under investigation.

"It's still in the process of being investigated," said Inspector General Fadil.

When confirmed regarding the status of the case, Fadil emphasized that the case was still being processed. However, it is not explained in detail the extent of the process of handling the case.

"The investigation is still in process. It is still going on," said Inspector General Fadil.

"Let it be. I don't want to comment on something that is (outside the realm). The second one is in the investigation process. Let the criminal justice system mechanism work later," he continued.

In addition, the Metro Police Chief also mentioned that one of the reasons he did not want to comment on the case was because he did not want to build an opinion. Moreover, even that case has been handled according to the rules.

"So we don't want to build opinions outside of that mechanism. Let's let justice be maximally obtained through that route," said Inspector General Fadil.