Celebrity Luna Maya could not hide her tears as she testified for the first time in a trial surrounding the distribution of a sex video via the Internet, implicating her fiancée and Peterpan front man, Nazriel Irham, better known as Ariel, at the Bandung District Court on Monday
elebrity Luna Maya could not hide her tears as she testified for the first time in a trial surrounding the distribution of a sex video via the Internet, implicating her fiancée and Peterpan front man, Nazriel Irham, better known as Ariel, at the Bandung District Court on Monday.
Taking the witness stand, she struggled to control her emotions, hugging her personal assistant, Purilasmi Rafiantine, who also testified.
Other defendants included Peterpan music editor Reza Rizaldi, alias Redjoy, and Anggit Gagah Pratama, both of whom face indictment for uploading the video, depicting people resembling Ariel, Luna and TV host Cut Tari, in separate clips, to the Internet.
Tari identified herself in the video in her testimony last week, while Ariel denied his part.
Luna, who was reported to be in Singapore during last week’s hearing, was silent upon arriving in court. She met earlier with Ariel in the court’s cell, where they whispered to each other for several minutes.
Before being summoned by judges, she read her dossiers, disregarding questions from encroaching reporters.
Ten minutes after the trial commenced, Luna was called to the prosecutor’s desk where she was asked to watch the video involving a person resembling her.
A judge also briefly watched the video.
After testifying for 75 minutes, Luna exited the courthouse, under close escort from a court officer, police and members of the Pemuda Pancasila youth organization.
Redjoy, defendant and witness in the case, said judges and prosecutors asked him to elaborate on the process of transferring the video file from Ariel’s external disk to his.
“It took a long time to explain the process in technical details. Anggit also was asked about that,” said Redjoy.
Public prosecutor Rusmanto said prosecutors were still waiting for Ariel’s ex-wife, Sarah Amalia, who had been summoned twice already to testify in court. “There is not yet any testimony from Sarah, but we will call her again,” he said.
In the trial, which lasted three-and-a-half hours, Rusmanto said all the witnesses were asked to watch the video on the laptop at the prosecutor’s desk. Only Purilasmi declined to watch it.
“She refused to watch on the grounds that it was bad to watch the video,” added Rusmanto.
He said the defendants had not objected to the testimonies from Luna and Purilasmi.
“The man has some resemblance in the hair style,” Rusmanto quoted Luna as saying.
Based on Redjoy’s testimony, he obtained the video in question from Ariel’s hard-disk in 2006.
Ariel’s lawyer Alfrian Bonjol said prosecutors had failed to prove his client’s involvement in distributing the video.
“If our client is accused of helping to distribute the video, prosecutors should summon witnesses who had observed, heard and were aware that our client was the one who helped distribute the sex video allegedly performed by him. In fact, none of the witnesses had heard or directly seen the defendant help distribute the video in which he was also involved,” said Alfrian.
The trial was adjourned until Dec. 23.
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