The Military Court II-08 Jakarta has started the initial stages of the trial of four military suspects in the acid attack against prominent civil society leader Andrie Yunus in March 2026. The legal process is ongoing with examination of the suspects, who are members of the military’s Strategic Intelligence Agency (BAIS) concluded on 13 May 2026.
The legal representation for the victim, the Advocacy Team for Democracy (TAUD), alongside organizations like Amnesty International Indonesia, strongly argue that the military court process fails the victim due to several critical flaws:
- Conflict of interest & soldier solidarity: Handling a violent assault on a civilian in a military court creates an inherent institutional conflict of interest.
- Exclusion of the victim: TAUD publicly criticized the military court proceedings for administrative failure, such as not formally or appropriately delivering physical summons to the victim within a legally adequate timeframe. TAUD representatives also called out the chief judge for requesting Yunus’ testimony in the court room despite him undergoing medical treatment as a consequence of the attack. TAUD representatives further announced they would report the Chief Judge of the military court for allegedly threatening Yunus with forcible arrest or conviction if he did not attend the court proceedings. The victim and his legal team ultimately boycotted and rejected the military tribunal entirely.
- Failure to prosecute intellectual masterminds: The military court process focuses tightly on the low-level operatives (the field actors) while failing to investigate the commanding structures or intellectual masterminds who may have ordered the targeted attack on the activist.
The military court trial thus denies the victim access to an independent and transparent judiciary, shifting the legal focus from public justice to the internal affairs of the institution. Furthermore, if the military court process concludes on 20 May 2026 with light sentences and zero investigation into the upper-level commanders, it sets a dangerous legal precedent. It effectively codifies a dual-track justice system in Indonesia: one where state intelligence actors can violently suppress civilian dissent and remain largely shielded from public accountability. This has far-reaching consequences for civil society and signals a systemic shrinking of civic space.
Given the serious concerns with the trial, Andrie Yunus’s representatives from TAUD demanded on 11 May 2026 that the charges be dropped, the proceedings be halted, and a full investigation be conducted immediately, suggesting that 16 or more suspects are involved and that the case should be tried in a civilian court.