JAKARTA: The controversy over the authenticity of former president Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s diploma has entered a new stage as the police launch a special review on the case and question expert witnesses who claimed that the document was fake.
On Wednesday (July 9), the National Police’s Criminal Investigation Department (Bareskrim) summoned Roy Suryo, a telematics expert and former youth and sports minister who has long questioned the diploma’s authenticity, as one of the expert witnesses for the case review.
After the review session at the National Police headquarters in Jakarta, he told reporters that he had presented an explanation of evidence to support his claims. “[We presented] an error level analysis of a picture of Jokowi’s diploma, which showed anomalies and suggested the document had been manipulated or edited,” Roy said.
“The photo used in the diploma is also fake. We used facial comparison tools and the result did not match with his recent photos, but rather matched with someone else’s.”
Accompanying Roy on Wednesday were Rismon Sianipar, forensic analyst and lecturer at Mataram University in West Nusa Tenggara (NTB), as well as legal practitioner Muhammad Taufiq, who filed a lawsuit with the Surakarta District Court, alleging Jokowi had falsified his high school and university diplomas.
Roy said the team compared Jokowi’s diploma with three similar documents issued to fellow alumni from the same cohort at Gadjah Mada University’s Forestry Department, where Jokowi was reportedly enrolled in 1980 and had graduated by 1985. He said the three diplomas shared similar characteristics with one another, but not with Jokowi’s.
A picture of the diploma in question that Roy and team had analysed had previously circulated online, when Indonesian Solidarity Party (PSI) politician Dian Sandi posted it on his social media in April, claiming that the document was real.
“[Our findings indicate that] the forensic analysis previously disclosed by the National Police’s general crime directorate was highly premature,” Rismon said. The police previously declared the diploma authentic in May and dropped its investigation into a complaint filed by a group named the Ulema and Activist Defender Team.
The group, which backed Roy and other experts, requested the police to re-examine the case, leading to Wednesday’s case review. The group was also present at the Bareskrim headquarters, expressing its optimism that the case would proceed to court and eventually hold Jokowi accountable.
However, Jokowi’s legal team argued otherwise. They questioned the expert witnesses’ claims saying that only authoriaed institutions had the legal capacity to verify the authenticity of academic documents.
“They did not present any valid evidence that showed the diploma is fake,” said Jokowi’s legal team spokesperson Yakup Hasibuan after the case review at Bareskrim. “There is no legal violation to justify continuing this investigation.”
He added that the legal team was not required to present the original diploma to the complainants, as they “do not have the authority to declare whether the document is authentic or forged”.
National Police Commission (Kompolnas) member Muhammad Choirul Anam, who observed the session, said the case review was done with both parties and expert witnesses being given a fair chance to present their arguments.
"Both parties explained their respective methodologies, and we observed what was being examined, including the diploma paper material, the official stamp and testing tools used,” he said.
Anam added the conclusion is now in the hands of the police investigators, and is expected to be announced soon.
Jokowi faced several allegations challenging the authenticity of his diploma, but had successfully challenged them all. But the issue resurfaced and gained public attention earlier this year following a lawsuit pertaining to the former president’s diplomas filed with the Surakarta District Court.
In response to the allegations, Jokowi filed a defamation report to the Jakarta Police, accusing Roy, Rismon, Taufiq and several others who publicly accused him of faking his academic documents under the Electronic Information and Transactions Law. Wednesday’s case review at Bareskrim focused on the diploma’s authenticity and is separate from the defamation case investigation at the Jakarta Police. - The Jakarta Post/ANN
