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Putri Candrawathi: Look for the woman!
Putri morphed from being a victim of sexual assault, allegedly by Yosua, to becoming one of the suspects for his murder.
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A dutiful wife: Putri Candrawathi (right) talks to the press as she visits her husband, Insp. Gen. Ferdy Sambo, who has been named a murder suspect, at his detention in Mobile Brigade Corps headquarters in Depok, West Java on Aug. 7. (Kompas TV/-)
D
o you like murder mysteries? Judging from the popularity of writers like Agatha Christie (1890-1976) and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) the creator of Sherlock Holmes, many people do.
Christie, who created the iconic character of Hercule Poirot, is the best-selling author of all time, with several of her works adapted into plays and/or films. One of them, The Mousetrap, has been running in a West End theater in London since 1952.
As is typical of whodunnits, a murder is involved: in this case, a woman. The setting is an inn with seven people who cannot go anywhere as there has been a snowstorm and all the roads are snowed in. One of them is the murderer. Who is it? All seven are suspects.
In the 70 years of the running of the play, viewers have been sworn to secrecy as to who the murderer is. Talk about suspense!
A similar suspense has gripped Indonesia since July, not least because it is considered the biggest scandal in police history. The murder victim in this case is a man: Brigadier Nofriansyah Yosua Hutabarat, a 27-year-old police officer, killed on July 8.
If The Mousetrap has seven suspects, the Yosua murder has five: the former head of the National Police’s Internal Affairs Division Insp. Gen. Ferdy Sambo, Second Agent Richard Eliezer, Brig. Ricky Rizal, Kuwat Maruf and Putri Candrawathi, Sambo’s wife. Sambo was the victim’s commanding officer.
There are many intriguing elements to this murder mystery, but I would like to focus on Putri. How on earth do you morph from being a victim of sexual assault, allegedly by Yosua, to becoming one of the suspects for his murder? By being a pawn, that’s how.
