FPI leader Habib Rizieq Refuses to sign arrest warrant

"Habib Rizieq has officially become a police detainee as of today at 11 am but he has refused to sign the arrest warrant," Ari Yusuf Amir, the lawyer, said here on Thursday after accompanying the FPI leader during questioning at the Jakarta Police Headquarters.

The lawyer said Rizieq was not willing to sign the arrest warrant because he was in fact not detained nor summoned by the Jakarta Police. Rizieq said he had come to the Jakarta Police HQ at his own initiative.

The FPI leader had also rejected the formal charges the police had leveled against him, Amir said.

The police had based their charges on Penal Code articles 170 on mass assault, 156 on instigating, 221 on hiding fugitives and 351 on severe torture.

The Jakarta Police were holding Habib Rizieq in a part of their detention center reserved for illicit drug criminals, the FPI leader's lawyer said.

Apart from Rizieq, police had also arrested 12 FPI members but they had yet to be put in cells as they were still undergoing questioning by police investigators.

"Some of the 12 FPI members also ...