Two men in black threw gasoline bombs at the office of a prominent Indonesian investigative magazine early yesterday, its editor-in-chief said, a week after it published a cover story on police corruption.
While the motive of the attack remains unclear, the case underlines the high stakes in exposing and tackling graft in a country that is attracting a surge of interest from investors, but is considered one of the most corrupt in Asia. Tempo’s editor-in-chief Wahyu Muryadi said the magazine’s security guards saw two men pull up on motorcycles at the Jakarta office at about 2:30am.
“They then threw three Molotov bottles, bottles with petrol [gasoline] inside. Two of them blew up and then they disappeared on motorcycles,” he said, adding no one was hurt and there was no significant damage to the building.
Police had sent a team to investigate, he said, while declining to speculate on the motive.
“I believe the police will do their best to investigate it. We are still working as usual and we are not in fear,” he said.
A police spokesman said the investigation had begun.
“The motive will be known after we capture the perpetrators. It’s difficult for us to speculate on the motive,” spokesman Boy Rafli Amar said.
Tempo has made many powerful enemies through its reports on cases of suspected corruption involving politicians, businessmen and law enforcement officials.
The magazine is the subject of a defamation case lodged by police over last month’s edition, which features a cover story on police graft titled “The fat bank accounts of police officers,” accompanied by a drawing of a policeman leading three piggy bank money boxes on leashes.
The English-language Jakarta Globe newspaper reported yesterday that Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had instructed the national police chief to investigate the Tempo report.
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