Sudomo, Siska chose to end their four years' old marriage
JAKARTA (JP): Retired admiral Sudomo, and his second wife Fransiska Diah Widowati, have failed to reconcile their differences, deciding to end their four years of marriage.
Presiding Judge Soedjatman from the South Jakarta District Court said on Friday that lawyers for both Sudomo and Siska said that their clients stuck to their original plea for divorce and refused to reconciliate their differences.
"We have tried but failed," said Siska's lawyer, Abdul Bari Azed in reply to a question from Judge Soedjatman whether he had tried to reunite his client with Sudomo.
While Jane. T. Puguh, Sudomo's lawyer from O.C. Kaligis' law office, refused to comment when she was approached by tens of reporters covering the trial as she left the court room.
"I have nothing to say," Jane said.
Neither Sudomo, currently chairman of the Supreme Advisory Council, nor Fransiska, popularly known as Siska, showed up at the court trial.
Sudjatman said that Fridays' trial, which lasted only 15 minutes and was closed to the press, has reached the conclusion stage because both lawyers of Sudomo and Siska have presented the court with all of the required evidence.
The trial was adjourned until next Friday when the court is expected to hand down a verdict.
Sudomo, former Coordinating Minister of Political Affairs and Security, 68, married Siska, former movie actress, 33, at Paulus church, Central Jakarta, on Sept. 20, 1990. Sudomo is a Protestant.
Ceremony
Several senior government officials, including then minister of defense and security L.B. Moerdani and Chief Justice Ali Said, attended the marriage ceremony.
The trial marks the second failed marriage for both Sudomo and Siska. The retired admiral has previously been divorced from Fransisca Piay, the mother of Sudomo's four grown children, while Siska was also a divorcee when she married Sudomo.
Sudomo and Siska seemed happy for much of their four-years together, overcoming the more than 30-year age difference. Even Siska's departure for a three month study in France last month did not seem to threaten the marital bliss.
But the press was shocked by Sudomo's action of filing a divorce suit at the South Jakarta District Court early last month, due to what he called `irreconcilable differences'.
The second Mrs. Sudomo, who is reportedly still abroad since before the court trial started, has never attended any of the four previous hearings.
The presiding judge said that the court has always summoned both parties for every court session but Sudomo only attended the first session while his wife was always represented by her lawyer.
When queried if Mrs. Sudomo is still in Paris, Abdul Bari Azed, her lawyer, said only "yes".
Like the four previous sessions, the fifth session of Sudomo's divorce trial attracted attention from the press, with some reporters and a private TV station crew arriving at the court building at 6 a.m. and awaiting the arrival of newsmaker Sudomo and Siska.(03)