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Jakarta Post

Prosecutors seek 12 years for Sambo’s bodyguard, 8 for wife

Dio Suhenda (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Thu, January 19, 2023 Published on Jan. 19, 2023 Published on 2023-01-19T01:11:57+07:00

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rosecutors have demanded that the wife and former bodyguard of ex-National Police internal affairs chief Ferdy Sambo be sentenced to eight and 12 years in prison, respectively, for their alleged roles in the murder of police officer Brig. Nofriansyah Yosua Hutabarat in July 2022.

At the South Jakarta District Court on Wednesday, prosecutors contended that Ferdy’s wife Putri Chandrawathi had helped plan and set in motion the murder of Ferdy’s aide-de-camp. Her involvement in the plot, the prosecution said, began after she claimed that Yosua had raped her in Magelang, Central Java, on July 7, 2022, a day before Yosua’s murder.

Prosecutors alleged on Wednesday that many of Putri’s statements were fallacious and that there was no convincing evidence of sexual assault, pointing instead to a possible affair between Putri and Yosua, as a polygraph test had suggested that Putri had lied when she denied the affair.

“If a sexual assault did not actually occur, then there is a strong indication that [Putri’s account of the] rape was part of a scenario made up by the defendant to cover up what actually happened,” said one of the prosecutors during the trial session.

Ferdy, who was in Jakarta when Putri told him the story of the disputed rape, prosecutors said, made arrangements in the early hours of July 8, 2022, for Putri, Yosua and Richard Eliezer, Ferdy’s bodyguard, to return home, along with another aide-de-camp, Brig. Ricky Rizal, and Kuat Ma’ruf, a domestic assistant to the family. Putri had asked for Ricky and Kuat to join so that they could provide back-up for Sambo in their eventual confrontation with Yosua, prosecutors claimed.

They also pointed to the fact that Putri had instructed Ricky to secure Yosua’s firearms in Magelang as further evidence of her alleged involvement in the murder plot.

Upon her arrival in Jakarta, prosecutors said Putri lured an unsuspecting Yosua to Ferdy’s official residence in South Jakarta, the scene of the crime, under the pretext of self-isolation after traveling during the COVID-19 pandemic. She and Ferdy had also informed Richard, Ricky and Kuat of their plan to kill Yosua by staging a shootout and promised to pay them to act as accomplices, according to prosecutors.

The prosecution demanded that the judges “declare Putri guilty of participating in premeditated murder” and sentence her to eight years in prison, citing what they said were her inconsistent statements and lack of remorse as aggravating factors.

At a separate hearing on Wednesday, prosecutors in the case of Ferdy’s former bodyguard Richard Eliezer claimed that Richard had shot Yosua at the command of Ferdy, who later fired a bullet into Yosua's head to make sure he was dead.

The prosecutors demanded a 12-year prison term for Richard.

“The defendant, following the previously agreed-upon plan, in a calm state of mind, shot his gun at [Yosua] three or four times, causing Yosua to fall on the ground, bleeding,” one prosecutor said.

The prosecutors cited the fact that Richard had initially stuck to the shootout narrative during his interrogation in August as one of reasons they were seeking a 12-year sentence. But their demands would have been greater, they said, if Richard had not eventually told investigators about the alleged murder plot and agreed to cooperate with authorities.

On Wednesday, Richard and Putri’s respective counsels will deliver their defense statements.

Prosecutors in Kuat and Ricky’s trials had demanded on Monday that the two be sentenced to eight years in prison each for their alleged involvement as accomplices in the murder.

Ferdy himself is facing possible life in prison for his alleged role in the murder.

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