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Alegal expert has accused the National Police of bias after investigators on Tuesday questioned the chairman of the Democratic Party in his hometown of Blitar, East Java, instead of at its Jakarta headquarters.

Bambang Widodo Umar, from the University of Indonesia, told the Jakarta Globe on Thursday that Anas Urbaningrum’s questioning should only have been conducted outside the capital if it was extremely urgent.

“It is better if the questioning is conducted at the National Police headquarters,” he said. “Only if the case is urgent and very important, then the police may question him outside the National Police headquarters.”

He said, however, that there was no such urgency in Anas’s case because his accuser, Muhammad Nazaruddin, was still believed to be hiding abroad.

“Nazaruddin hasn’t been arrested yet. If Anas couldn’t come to the headquarters for questioning, then the police should have asked him to come on the next available day,” he said.

“Everyone is equal before the law, and even though people have grown used to the official discrimination, it is not the way to educate people about democracy.”

Last week, Anas formally reported Nazaruddin, a Democratic party colleague, to the National Police for defamation after Nazaruddin accused him on national television of being involved in a graft case related to the construction of the athletes’ village for November’s Southeast Asian Games.

Anas’s lawyer, Patra M. Zen, however, dismissed the bias claims and insisted his client had received no favorable treatment by being questioned in his hometown instead of at the National Police headquarters.

“No, it was not a privilege. He was treated the same just like any other [witness],” he said. “It is stipulated in the Criminal Code Procedures article 133 and in the police chief’s regulations that it is possible to question witnesses anywhere.”

Separately, Blitar Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Wahyono said that while Anas had been questioned at his station, officers from the National Police had conducted the proceedings.

“We only provided our facilities,” he was quoted by news agency Antara as saying. “[Anas] was questioned by a team of National Police detectives. He came here right after visiting the graves of his parents.”

National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Anton Bachrul Alam said holding the questioning in Blitar was “nothing out of the ordinary.”