Murder witness retracts testimony to city police
Murder witness retracts testimony to city police
JAKARTA (JP): A witness in a murder case retracted his earlier testimony to police during a court hearing held yesterday.
Philipus, 47, a security guard at a Catholic church in Pademangan, North Jakarta, (not at a private company as reported earlier) is also the prime suspect in the murder. He took the witness stand yesterday at the court hearing to process Suparmi, his wife, who is allegedly an accomplice in the killings.
Philipus is charged with murdering a housewife and three children in their house in the Bambu Apus subdistrict of East Jakarta on Oct. 2 last year. The Rohadi family lived about 200 meters from Philipus' house.
Philipus told the court that he was under severe physical and psychological pressure when giving testimony.
"I was stripped naked, beaten black-and-blue and had four police personnel sitting on a table with each of its legs fixed on my hands and feet," he said of his experience days before the report was made.
The witness said the police controlled the scenario at the reconstruction of the crime and said he had to comply with it.
"I was led to conduct different scenarios during the reconstruction," he said.
The corpses, he said, were placed parallel to each other during rehearsal to the reconstruction of the crime but were put at different angles during actual reconstruction.
The witness then gave his version of the details of the killings as enacted during the rehearsal.
In response to Philipus' explanations, the team of judges said that even when the suspect lied to the court, his lie matched what seemed to have happened.
"Please help the court process by not beating around the bush so much," Judge Tojib Madretis who led the hearing told witness Philipus.
Prior to Suparmi's hearing, a court hearing to process Philipus as the prime suspect of the killings was adjourned yesterday until next Monday due to the absence of two police officers who were to appear as witnesses, due to out of town duty.
Security at the courthouse, which was packed with visitors, seemed lax compared to previous sessions of the case where security was tight.
The suspects in the killings are being tried in three separate trials. All three hearings, including a closed hearing to try underage children allegedly involved in the murder, were adjourned until next Monday. (14)