BBC investigation returns abusive teacher to Indonesian prison after secret early release

Mochamad Subchi Azal Tsani walked free in August 2025, three and a half years into a seven-year prison sentence for sexually assaulting a student. No one told the woman he had been convicted of harming. She had a legal right to know. She found out through a BBC investigation instead.

Tsani, known as Bechi, had been sentenced in 2022 after a trial at the Islamic boarding school in East Java where he worked as a teacher. His father, Muhammad Mukhtar Mu'thi, is a prominent Islamic cleric who founded the Shiddiqiyyah school in Jombang. When police came to arrest him in 2022, supporters gathered at the school to block his removal. It took a 15-hour siege before he was taken into custody. Prosecutors had pushed for a longer sentence after multiple students accused him of rape, but he was acquitted of those charges and convicted instead of the lesser offense of sexual assault against one student.

The early release came quietly, justified by the Ministry of Immigration and Corrections as a routine application of sentence reduction regulations. But when the BBC's undercover investigation documented Bechi greeting supporters at a public event in March—while still supposedly imprisoned—the story broke open. The woman he had assaulted learned he had been free for months without her knowledge. She wept when told he was being returned to prison.

"I pray that this doesn't happen to anyone else and that, going forward, the law will be applied justly in Indonesia," she told the BBC, speaking on condition of anonymity.

One of several other students who testified against Bechi at trial, Ira Puspitasari, chose to speak publicly about her experience. She said she was raped and sexually abused by him for more than four years beginning when she was fifteen. She described being held captive, beaten, and tortured. When she tried to escape, she said his private security guards tracked her down, kidnapped her, and took her to a secluded hut where the abuse continued. She reported the crimes to police but was intimidated into withdrawing her complaint. She has an audio recording of Bechi's mother instructing her to deny that anything had occurred.

Watching the BBC footage of Bechi smiling at the event he should never have attended, Puspitasari became tearful. "It's like nothing ever happened," she said.

The public outcry and parliamentary calls for investigation that followed the BBC's reporting prompted the government to conduct a comprehensive review. That review found "errors" in the approval of Bechi's parole. Immigration and Corrections Minister Agus Andrianto announced that those responsible for authorizing his release would face sanctions. "We want to make sure that such mistakes or irregularities do not happen again," he said.

Puspitasari was invited to testify at a parliamentary hearing this week examining how the state handles sexual abuse cases in religious and educational institutions. Lawyer Joko Jumadi, who represents abuse victims in such settings, also addressed the hearing. He described a pattern in which authorities resist investigating allegations involving "influential religious figures who have large followings." He told lawmakers that he regularly receives threats and intimidation for taking on these cases. The hearing itself—convened in response to the BBC investigation—signals a shift in how the government is treating these failures, though whether that shift will hold remains to be seen.