Jakarta. Indonesian police have promised to release a leading antigraft investigator arrested shortly after midnight on Friday, after President Joko Widodo weighed in on the issue following a massive public outcry.

Officers from the police’s detectives’ unit arrested Novel Baswedan, a veteran investigator with the Corruption Eradication Commission, or KPK, at his home in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, in connection with a long-settled case widely seen as having been dug up by the police to attack the KPK.

News of the arrest saw Indonesians turned to social media to lambast the force for its blatant and persistent retaliation against the KPK’s decision in January to name Budi Gunawan, now the National Police deputy chief, a corruption suspect.

Amid the outcry, Joko instructed the police chief, Badrodin Haiti, to release Novel, saying the arrest threatened to further damage ties between the police and the KPK.

“I have ordered the National Police chief to release Novel. The legal process must be done transparently and fairly,” Joko said on Friday in his hometown of Solo, Central Java. “The KPK and the National Police are to work in synergy and avoid controversy.”

The police have targeted Novel since 2012, in the wake of a KPK investigation into police general Djoko Susilo, the traffic police chief, on allegations of bribery and bid-rigging in connection with the procurement of driving simulators for the traffic police unit.

Djoko and another police general, Didik Purnomo, were later jailed as a result of the investigation, which was led by Novel — whose career in the KPK began as an on-loan officer from the police.

In their 2012 witch hunt, the police accused Novel of involvement in the death of an alleged thief in custody in 2004, during his time as chief of the detective in the Bengkulu province police force.

But police abandoned the case after Djoko and Didik were convicted, only to conveniently revive it again after the KPK charged Budi earlier this year. Police have also charged two KPK commissioners in separate cases as part of the Budi blowback.

The president has instructed the newly inaugurated police chief Badrodin to restore ties with the KPK, an institution that  enjoys a massive public support for its relentless campaign against corruption.

The police force, meanwhile, is widely regarded as the most corrupt government institution in the land.

The National Police’s chief of detectives, Budi Waseso, a sycophant of Budi Gunawan’s, said his team would abide by the president’s order to release Novel from custody, claiming that the only reason he was arrested was because he had failed to answer a police summons for questioning.

“At 4 p.m. [on Friday], the investigators, Novel and his lawyers will be flown to Bengkulu to attend a re-enactment [of the abuse case] at 7 p.m.,” Waseso said.

“After the re-enactment, at around 11 p.m., Novel will be returned [to Jakarta] and before 3 a.m.[on Saturday] he will be released. We are not detaining him.”

Badrodin said the move was necessary to expedite investigation.

“Novel’s case is still ongoing. The prosecutors are asking for more questioning and for [Novel] to conduct a re-enactment at the scene of the crime,” he said.

Badrodin also denied that the sudden revival of this 11-year-old case was connected to the KPK’s decision to charge his new deputy, adding that it was the alleged thief’s family who insisted that police continue the investigation.

In 2004, the Bengkulu Police tried to settle the case out of court and have Novel face an internal disciplinary hearing, but the family of the dead man refused and insisted that Novel be charged.

“If the case remains unresolved, then the police will get sued. This is why the police are trying to solve this case as quickly as possible,” Badrodin said, adding that Novel had ignored several summonses.

Badrodin also denied that the investigation was linked to the 2012 driving simulator case.

The KPK, however, denied that Novel had been cooperative, saying he could not attend any of the questioning sessions because of scheduling conflicts.

“There have been official explanations from KPK leaders to leaders of the National Police [about Novel’s absence],” KPK interim deputy chairman Johan Budi said, following an emergency meeting of the commission’s leaders in the wake of the arrest.

“The KPK will bail Novel out. The arrest is unnecessary,” Johan added.

The arrest came a week after Budi Gunawan was sworn in as Indonesia’s number two police officer. Budi was dropped by Joko for the top job because of the corruption allegation leveled by the KPK.

A judge later dismissed the charges against him in a pretrial motion, even though he was not authorized to do so, legal experts pointed out.

Separate police investigations have led to the suspension of two KPK commissioners, chairman Abraham Samad and deputy chairman Bambang Widjojanto.

Ray Rangkuti, the executive director of the Indonesian Civil Society Circle (Lima), urged Joko to overhaul the police force.

“The president has told [police] to stop criminalizing [KPK officials]. He’s said the same thing five times now,” he said.

“Just remove Budi Waseso as chief detective. It was when he took the job that these problems started occurring. Remove Waseso from office and reform the institution.”

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