Witnesses testify in favor of Iwik

YOGYAKARTA (JP): The wife of Dwi Sumadji alias Iwik said her husband was with her most of the night and could not have committed the murder of local journalist Fuad Muhammad Syafruddin.

"Mas (my husband) Iwik didn't go anywhere on the night Udin was murdered," Sunarti said yesterday at the 11th session of the murder trial, presided by Judge Endang Sri Murwati.

"He was with me in our bedroom at 8 p.m. and only left the house for awhile at midnight when hearing our neighbors' shout about a missing motorbike," Sunarti said.

She maintained, however, that Iwik did not stay out long. "He immediately returned back to the bedroom," she said.

Pleading for her husband's innocence, she said Iwik's Vespa motor scooter had never left the house as the prosecutors charged in the dossiers.

"The Vespa was still in the kitchen. It was impossible to push it out of the house because my son and my mother were sleeping on a mattress, which blocked the way out," she said.

Sunarti and three other witnesses dismissed the prosecutors' allegation that Iwik was the murderer of Syafruddin, commonly referred to as Udin.

Udin, a Yogyakarta-based Bernas daily journalist, was murdered on the night of Aug. 13 last year.

His murder was allegedly connected to his reports on corruption in the Bantul regency administration.

Sunarti's neighbors, Sumardi and Gunarso, also testified in favor of Iwik.

They dismissed the prosecutors' allegation that Iwik murdered Udin because the journalist had an affair with Sunarti.

"I've never heard Iwik complain about his inharmonious relationship with his wife," Sumardi said.

"I've never heard of an affair Sunarti had with another man either," he added.

Meanwhile, Gunarso, who appeared in court as a third witness, said: "Iwik only told me about his asthma."

Earlier Sunarti testified that she had never had an affair with Udin.

"Udin and I were friends when we were in MAN (Islamic Senior High School). However, we didn't meet each other again until after I married Mas Iwik," she said.

"Udin was chairman of OSIS (Internal Student Organization) and I was the treasurer. Yet, our relationship was purely about organizational matters," she added.

The fourth witness, Edy Suryanto, is owner of CV Dymas Advertising, the place where Iwik worked.

He said when police came to the office to look for evidence, an iron bar believed to be the murder weapon was taken without any formal papers.

Edy said he did not know anything about the evidence and how it was found by the police.

"I only knew that the iron bar was material evidence after police investigators took it from a heap of scrap iron," he said. (23/imn)