Mutually Assured Prosecution

When anti-corruption becomes impossible to distinguish from institutional warfare

The police displayed seventy-four kilograms of gold.

They displayed stacks of American dollars, Singapore dollars and rupiah — assets seized across a series of searches that investigators valued at roughly Rp476 billion. At the centre of the investigation was Febrie Adriansyah, until recently one of Indonesia’s most powerful anti-corruption prosecutors: the official who had spent years placing politicians, executives and public servants under the same unforgiving light now directed at him. Within days, he resigned and was named a suspect in investigations involving state insurance funds, coal procurement and transactions connected to Krakatau Steel. He denies wrongdoing and says the money can be accounted for.

Outside one of his residences, soldiers stood guard.

The Indonesian military said their presence had been requested by the Attorney General’s Office under regulations providing protection to prosecutors. It insisted that the deployment was unrelated to the police investigation and would not interfere with it. The explanation was formally plausible. The image remained extraordinary: armed military personnel protecting the home of a senior prosecutor while another civilian…