Ferdy Sambo, one of Indonesia's top police officers, was sentenced to death on Monday for the premeditated murder of his bodyguard following a river trial that kept Indonesia in suspense .
The police chief of this country was on trial for having ordered the assassination in July of Brigadier Nofriansyah Yosua Hutabarat, found dead at his home, and having finished him off himself with a bullet.
Capital punishment
"
The actions of the accused have caused deep grief to the family of the victim...his actions have tarnished the reputation of the national police in the eyes of the Indonesian people and the international community," Wahyu Iman Santoso said
. , the senior judge of the South Jakarta District Court.
"
I declare the accused Ferdy Sambo (...) guilty of the crime of premeditated murder
" and "
sentence him to the death penalty
".
The trial was seen as a test for the impunity of the police and for the institutions of this Southeast Asian archipelago in general.
The victim's mother was in court, holding a portrait of her murdered son, when the judge announced the sentence imposed on Ferdy Sambo, who was also present.
Audience screams
The public, who expected a maximum life prison sentence, as required by the prosecution, cried out.
When the body of the 27-year-old bodyguard was found at Ferdy Sambo's home on July 8, police initially claimed another member of security killed him after catching him sexually assaulting the senior official's wife.
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But, on August 9, Ferdy Sambo, who has the rank of general, was arrested on suspicion of having ordered the murder and of having himself finished off the victim of a bullet.
His wife was arrested two weeks later.
The couple's arrest followed several weeks of questioning about what had happened at the senior official's home where the body of the brigadier was found riddled with several bullets and bearing signs of torture.
Ferdy Sambo had initially provided the alibi that he had gone to get tested for Covid-19 at the time.
Police, accused of a cover-up, took several days to report the murder and assured that surveillance cameras inside the home were not working.
Ferdy Sambo has one week to appeal the verdict.
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