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Mystery still shrouds coffee murder case

In the hot seat: Jessica Kumala Wongso heads to the defendant seat in the murder trial of her friend Wayan Mirna Salihin at the Central Jakarta district court on Tuesday

Indra Budiari (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Wed, June 22, 2016

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Mystery still shrouds coffee murder case

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span class="inline inline-center">In the hot seat: Jessica Kumala Wongso heads to the defendant seat in the murder trial of her friend Wayan Mirna Salihin at the Central Jakarta district court on Tuesday. Jessica is accused of premeditated murder. Wayan died in January after sipping cyanide-laced coffee.(JP/ Wienda Parwitasari)

The owner of the cyanide in a glass of iced coffee that killed 27-year-old Wayan Mirna Salihin earlier this year remains unknown, as state prosecutors insisted they would focus on the planning of the crime, rather than the poison allegedly used, during the second hearing of the high-profile trial on Tuesday.

Mirna’s death on Jan. 6 at an upscale eatery in Central Jakarta was carefully orchestrated by her friend Jessica Kumala Wongso, prosecutor Ardito Muwardi told the Central Jakarta District Court, adding that he would later present the evidence to support this claim.

Ardito dismissed as red herrings questions posed by Jessica’s defense team during the previous hearing regarding the source of the poison and Jessica’s modus operandi.

“Rather than answering where Jessica got the cyanide, and other questions posed by the defense, we will reveal the murder plan carefully concocted by Jessica,” he told the court.

Escorted by a masked officer, the defendant appeared calm as she entered the court room to hear prosecutors’ response to her defense.

On suspicion of causing Mirna’s death, Jessica was charged under Article 340 of the Criminal Code on premeditated murder, which carries the maximum penalty of death.

According to the indictment, Jessica planned to kill Mirna after the latter made derogatory remarks about Jessica’s then boyfriend, calling him ill-mannered and a drug abuser; she supposedly accomplished this deed by lacing Mirna’s coffee with cyanide.

The court was told that after taking a sip of the coffee, Mirna had commented that the coffee was “awful” and asked Jessica to taste it, but Jessica refused. However, Boon “Hani” Juwita, a friend of the suspect and defendant who was also present, did taste the drink.

Shortly afterwards, Mirna fell unconscious before convulsing and foaming at the mouth, but Jessica remained in her seat and made no move to help her friend, prosecutors alleged.

Jessica denies the charges, insisting she had nothing to do with Mirna’s death.

Defense team leader Otto Hasibuan said in the previous hearing last Wednesday that the prosecutors had failed to provide a clear picture of the case in the indictment, accusing them of failing to explain where Jessica had obtained the cyanide and where she had kept it in the restaurant.

Following Tuesday’s hearing, Otto said the prosecutors’ persistent failure to explain the matter of the cyanide pointed to the weakness of their case. The seasoned lawyer also questioned the medical examination results, which did not specify the amount of sodium cyanide in the victim’s body.

“The prosecutors’ case rests solely on the amount of cyanide in the glass of Vietnamese iced coffee that Mirna drank,” he told reporters. “That doesn’t prove that Mirna was killed by the poison.”

The trial is set to continue until June 28, when the panel of judges is scheduled to declare whether the case has strong grounds to continue or not.

Responding to Otto’s dismissal of the case against Jessica, prosecutor Shandy Handika said he and his team were not experts in toxicology, adding that a toxicologist would be presented during witness hearings in support of the case.  “Of course we can’t answer [questions surrounding the provenance of the poison]. That is a very technical question, and far beyond our purview,” Shandy said, adding that CCTV footage of the crime scene would be played to allow judges to decide if Jessica was involved in the crime.

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