I still remember the news from October 2008 that the corpse of a slain priest had been found in Nagekeo Regency, next to his motorcycle and without his valuables, which made the case look like a robbery. Or that’s what I thought at least.
But it appears that Flores is still a very safe place and robberies don’t happen, as the police later was able to track down and arrest five people who were thought to have conspired to murder the priest because he had refused to officiate at one man’s religious wedding. Two of the five, a woman who had first been interviewed as a witness of the priest’s death as she had admitted getting a ride from him, and the man whose request to be married had been turned down by the priest, were sentenced to life in prison in May 2009 by the district court in Bajawa, Ngada Regency. While some people were not satisfied with that sentence as they had called for the death penalty for the murder of a priest, the man’s wife strongly denied that her husband had any involvement in the murder and decried a ‘legal mafia’ being at work in this case. She said that the priest had merely said that her husband should learn how to read and write before marriage.
Now one year later, the high court in the provincial capital Kupang overturned the lower court’s verdict and acquitted both accused due to lack of conclusive evidence. However, the popular sentiment seems to be very much against the accused as on August 27, an article in the Flores Pos in turn denounced the high court of being run by a ‘legal mafia’ itself. Indeed it seems an odd turn of event, from life in prison to complete acquittal. The woman had been found in possession of the victim’s cell phone, had abandoned his body, which was found only five days later, and had admitted having witnessed him being beaten to death, so it would appear that she would have been guilty of some crime, but then I’m no expert in Indonesian law. We will see if the prosecution appeals the case to the Supreme Court in Jakarta and lets the saga continue.
(Sources: local media such as Flores Pos and Pos Kupang and national media such as Kompas)
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