TAUD Files Pretrial Over Yunus Acid Attack

This is a fight over jurisdiction as much as a fight over one brutal attack. Andrie Yunus — a KontraS activist who had been criticizing the military’s growing public role — was attacked with acid in Jakarta on March 12, 2026. Four Indonesian soldiers have since been charged, and a military court opened trial proceedings on April 29. But that did not end the dispute. On the same day, the Advocacy Team for Democracy, or TAUD, went to South Jakarta District Court to challenge how the civilian police handled the case in the first place. (en.tempo.co) ### What did TAUD actually file? TAUD filed a pretrial motion — in Indonesia, that is a court mechanism used to test whether investigators acted lawfully or improperly stopped or mishandled a case. The target here is the Jakarta Metro Police investigation into the acid attack. TAUD says the police process effectively stalled, even though the victim is a civilian and the attack happened in a civilian setting. (en.tempo.co) ### Why are there two police reports? That detail matters because TAUD says there were two separate reporting tracks. One was a “model A” police report created right after the attack. The other was a “model B” report that TAUD filed with the national police criminal investigation unit and that later moved to Jakarta Metro Police. TAUD’s argumen(en.tempo.co)toward military handling. (en.tempo.co) ### What is the police side saying? Jakarta Metro Police says its authority ended once the case file and evidence were handed to Puspom TNI, the military police. In other words, civilian investigators are treating the transfer itself as the endpoint. That is exactly what TAUD is trying to contest. The group says a violent attack on a civilian should not simply disappear from civilian law enforcement once soldiers become suspects. (en.tempo.co) ### Who is accused in the attack? Military investigators named four soldiers from BAIS, Indonesia’s Strategic Intelligence Agency, as suspects. Earlier reporting said Puspom TNI completed its investigation in about a month and sent the case to military prosecutors. A military court in Jakarta began hearing the case on April 29. So the strange p(en.tempo.co)alive. (cnnindonesia.com) ### Why is TAUD still pushing if a trial already started? Because TAUD is not just asking for punishment of the alleged attackers. It is also challenging the structure of the investigation. The group has argued for weeks that the assault looked organized, not random. It said its own review of 37 CCTV (cnnindonesia.com)ts do not want the case narrowed too quickly. (en.tempo.co) ### Why does the military court issue matter so much? This is the bigger political nerve. Rights groups in Indonesia have long argued that military courts are too insulated when soldiers are accused of crimes against civilians. Yunus was attacked after campaigning against the military’s expanding role in public life, so the venue now carries sy(en.tempo.co) a message about who gets to investigate abuse when soldiers are involved. (aljazeera.com) ### So what happens next? The military trial will keep moving unless something interrupts it, while the South Jakarta pretrial process will test whether the police transfer can be challenged. Those are separate tracks, but they collide on one core question — was the state too quick to treat this as a military matter? That is why TAUD’s filing matters even after suspects were charged. (en.tempo.co) ### Bottom line The news is not just that a legal filing happened. It is that two versions of justice are now running side by side — one inside the military court, one questioning why civilian investigators stepped back at all. (en.tempo.co)