Indonesian Maid Wilfrida Escapes Malaysian Death Sentence

Jakarta Globe, Erwida Maulia, Apr 07, 2014

Indonesian maids raise their hands during a police check on the eligibility of the
 workers’ status to work abroad at a shelter in Bekasi in 2011. (AFP Photo/Adek Berry).

Jakarta. Indonesian maid Wilfrida Soik escaped the death penalty after a Malaysian court on Monday acquitted her of murdering her elderly Malaysian employer on the ground of insanity, ending more than three years of legal battle that has drawn the attention of the Indonesian public and politicians alike.

Wilfrida was charged with murder under Malaysia’s tough Penal Code after she allegedly killed 60-year-old Yeap Seok Pen at the latter’s house in Pasir Mas in Malaysia’s Kelantan state in December 2010.

Judges at Malaysia’s Kota Bharu High Court on Monday said Wilfrida was proven to have murdered Yeap by stabbing her 42 times, but that she had done that while in a mentally ill condition, the Indonesian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, which has hired lawyers to defend Wilfrida, said Monday.

The 20-year-old has been suffering from an “acute and transient psychotic disorder,” and judges said she should be treated at Permai Hospital in the Malaysian state of Johor while waiting for the sultan of Kelantan to pardon her, before she could return to her family in Belu district, in East Nusa Tenggara province.

“[Wilfrida’s] IQ is also very low, rendering her unable to fully understand realities around her, as well as the legal consequence of her actions,” the embassy said in a statement. “Because of her mental condition, the judges said she was not guilty.”

The judges also accepted the lawyers’ defense that Wilfrida had committed the crime while she was underage, the embassy added. Under Malaysia’s law, capital punishment is not applicable to minors, and the child law should be used instead to charge such offenders.

Wilfrida’s actual age at the time of the crime was a focal point of her defense. Her passport carries a birth date of June 8, 1989, but her christening letter from a Catholic church in Indonesia reads Oct. 12, 1993.

Judges agreed that she was 17 when committing the crime and not 21 as suggested by the passport, the information of which was allegedly falsified by a trafficker sending her to Malaysia in 2010.

The case is not over yet, though, the embassy warned. “Prosecutors may still appeal the ruling within 14 days after receiving a written statement of the verdict.”

Monday’s ruling, nevertheless, was cheered by Indonesian activists who have been following closely Wilfrida’s case, including those from a nongovernmental group concerned with Indonesian migrant workers’ issues, Migrant Care, which has sent its Malaysian officer to attend court hearings on the case.

“Since the beginning, Migrant Care believes Wilfrida didn’t deserve the death penalty because she was underage [at the time of the crime] and she was a victim of human trafficking,” the group said in a statement issued soon after the ruling.

“The acquittal and the decision that she has to undergo mental treatment at the Malaysian hospital is fair and just because she murdered the employer to defend herself from the employer’s torture.”

Wilfrida’s three-year legal battle has drawn widespread sympathy in Indonesia, with a petition to support her posted by Migrant Care executive director Anis Hidayah at the website change.org signed by more than 13,000 people.

Aside from drawing public support, Wilfrida’s case has also interested some Indonesian politicians, the most high-profile one being Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra) founder and presidential hopeful Prabowo Subianto.

Prabowo announced in September he was hiring a top Malaysian lawyer to join the Indonesian defense team in the case.

Prabowo even went so far as to fly to Malaysia on Sunday so that he could attend Monday’s hearing at the Kota Bharu court. He said he was glad his hiring of Malaysian lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee appeared to be fruitful.

“Thank God Wilfrida is free,” Prabowo said in a statement to the media on Monday. “Thank you for the support and prayers from the people of Indonesia. Without those, this wouldn’t have happened.”

Migrant Care’s Anis, though, said Prabowo played only a small role in Wilfrida’s freedom. “He only hired the lawyer last September, around the time he declared his presidential bid,” she said.

Prabowo officially declared his presidential bid in October.

Anis attributed instead the success in Wilfrida’s defense to the Indonesian government.

“The government has been quite comprehensive this time, hiring lawyers, establishing communications with civil society groups and local communities from Wilfrida’s hometown … allowing them to get a statement from the church where she had been baptized concerning her actual age.”

Wilfrida’s acquittal came just days after Satinah binti Jumaidi Ahmad, a 41-year-old migrant worker from Central Java, narrowly escaped being beheaded in Saudi Arabia last Friday after the Indonesian government agreed to pay 7 million riyal ($1.9 million) in diyat , or blood money, to the victim’s family.

Satinah was sentenced to be executed in the kingdom after being convicted of killing her then-employer in 2007 and fleeing with 37,970 riyal.

Anis, though, said that the work of protecting Indonesians abroad was far from over. She said there were currently a total of 245 other Indonesian migrant workers facing the death penalty overseas — in Malaysia, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, China, Iran and Qatar.

In Malaysia alone, the number stands at 176, with most of the alleged offenders charged with drug abuse, according to the Indonesian Embassy.

This year already 14 of them have been saved from the death penalty, including Wilfrida.

Anis said one obstacles in saving those condemned was the fact that Indonesia itself still practiced capital punishment.

“The thing is, those countries ask how come you [Indonesia] demand that your citizens be exempted from capital punishment when you also adopt capital punishment,” Anis told the Jakarta Globe. “That’s why Migrant Care is among the opponents of the practice; it’s against human rights.”

At a policy level, the government has shown more commitment to better protecting Indonesian migrant workers, who reportedly sent Rp 88 trillion ($7.7 billion) in remittances home last year, Anis said.

She praised in particular the government’s ratification of the UN Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families two years ago, saying the convention provided comprehensive guidelines on how to deal with and take care of migrant workers — prior to their overseas assignments and even after they return home.

Anis added, though, that there remained a lot of work left to do on technical guidelines and policy implementation.

“For one, the convention needs to be harmonized with existing regulations such as the migrant worker law currently under revision,” she said.