he attorney of murder defendant Jessica Kumala Wongso , Otto Hasibuan, said on Thursday that his client could not be determined as a criminal solely based off of her body gestures.
"Gestures cannot be used to determine someone has committed a crime. Gestures can be interpreted differently," Otto said before the judges at the Central Jakarta District Court on Thursday while reading Jessica's defense plea.
During the ongoing trials, which started in June, prosecutors had presented experts from psychologists, digital forensic experts to criminology experts all of whom agreed that Jessica has demonstrated odd behaviors throughout the trial. Jessica is the sole suspect of the murder of Mirna, who died on Jan. 6 at Olivier restaurant in Grand Indonesia shopping mall after drinking a cyanide-laced Vietnamese coffee.
Jessica's gestures, such as playing with her hair, continuously looking around and moving paper bags on the table have become sources of discussion in the hearing. Her calm behavior had also invited suspicions that she was guilty in this case, prosecutors had said.
Otto disagreed with prosecutors interpretation of Jessica's gestures.
"Anything that Jessica does is seen as wrong, sitting, standing, walking slowly, anything. If Mirna hadn't died, would Jessica's gestures still indicate something wrong?" he said.
The defense statement on Thursday was a follow-up from Wednesday's hearing. Jessica and her team of attorneys read out the defense statements consisting of 4,000 pages. The prosecutors had sought 20 years imprisonment against Jessica, the Australian permanent resident, over Mirna's murder case. (rin)
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