Ratna Sarumpaet, a former senior campaigner for presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto’s ticket, has failed in her attempt to be released from police custody as she undergoes trial for her infamous public fraud case.
This morning, the South Jakarta District Court denied Ratna’s plea to be placed under city arrest during the duration of her trial, with the court arguing that such a consideration is usually reserved for those who require special medical attention.
But Ratna isn’t ready to give up just yet and says she plans on filing another plea soon.
“We (Ratna and her legal representatives) will still try again because he (the judge) saw it on the grounds that one must be sick. I may not be sick, but at this age sleeping like that in a cell for months is difficult,” she told reporters today, as quoted by Kompas.
Ratna is turning 70 in July.
In October, the veteran human rights activist and actress told presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto — for whom Ratna was campaigning for in next year’s election — and her fellow campaigners that she had recently been assaulted by a group of unidentified men in Bandung, where she was attending an international conference (which didn’t exist). A photo of what was supposedly her battered face went viral online and Prabowo and others in his coalition called upon the police to bring her attackers to justice.
But a police investigation into her claim quickly concluded that the bruises in her photo were the side effects of a recent facial liposuction procedure and that her entire story had huge holes in it, indicating the whole thing had been falsified.
Ratna eventually fessed up to her lie, claiming she fabricated the assault story so that her children wouldn’t be concerned about her swollen up face (because that totally makes sense, apparently). Soon after, Prabowo dropped her from his campaign team and numerous police complaints against her from various civil groups were filed.
Ratna was arrested at the Soekarno-Hatta Airport just as she was about to leave for a playwrights conference in Chile. Since then, prosecutors have indicted her with spreading misinformation and causing public disorder under Article 14 (1) of the Criminal Code, which is punishable by up to 10 years in prison, as well as hate speech under Article 45A (2) of the Information and Electronic Transactions Act (UU ITE), which is punishable by up to six years in prison.
