Komarudin, the former chief (RT) of a neighborhood in Cikupa, Tangerang, is currently undergoing trial for his role in a deeply disturbing crime. He, along with five other co-defendants, stands accused of assaulting a young unmarried couple, beating them, stripping them and parading them through the streets of his neighborhood because they thought the two were engaging in premarital sex.
The horrifying act of “moral vigilantism,” which took place on Nov. 11, was filmed by some of the perpetrators and guilty bystanders and the videos quickly went viral online, eventually leading police to arrest the suspects. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the clips are the young woman’s terrified pleas for mercy that Komarudin and his co-defendants gleefully ignored as they ripped off her clothes.
Yesterday, it was Komarudin and his co-defendants that were crying and begging for mercy from the judges in their trial as they read their defense statements and asked that that they be shown leniency (just as he cried two weeks ago when the prosecution demanded that the RT be handed a 7-year prison sentence for persecution, assault and violating the country’s pornography laws).
Komarudin reportedly read his defense statement with shaking hands and tears running down his face as he begged the judges for mercy and apologized to his victims.
“I apologize to the victims, I plead for the leniency to the judges, I ask for their consideration. What will happen to my family and my children’s schooling? I must provide for them,” Komarudin said as quoted by Okezone.
But if you think that the RT might have truly learned his lesson or actually feel regret, you’d likely be mistaken. In other parts of his statement, Komarudin said that he did not think that he was a criminal or that he was a danger to the state and that he had always stayed far away from drugs.
Most galling, while he apologized to his victims, Komarudin still defended his actions as being part of his responsibilities as an RT, saying he was tasked with minimizing misconduct within his neighborhood. He also accused the victims of lying and exaggerating in their testimony, arguing that he and his co-defendants hadn’t actually beaten the couple as much as they had claimed.
The judges are set to issue their verdict in the case next week.
The incident on Nov. 11 began in the evening, when people in Komarudin’s neighborhood saw the male victim entering the female victim’s house. According to the police, he was only bringing food over to his fiance’s house before it was raided by the group of men and they were forced to say that they had been getting intimate out of wedlock after being assaulted by the vigilantes.
As shown in the videos, the visibly distressed couple were then forced outside onto the street by the men, who continued to berate them for being indecent. While the woman had a T-shirt on at the beginning of the video, the men soon forcefully stripped her completely naked, despite her ear-piercing screams for mercy. The couple were also beaten on several occasions while they were paraded 400 meters — an ordeal which lasted for about an hour.
Police said that the vigilantes also deliberately took photos and recorded the public humiliation so that they could post them online, in further violation of Indonesia’s pornography laws.
Authorities told the media that the couple were given psychological counseling for their trauma. They also got married less than two weeks after the incident – they had already been engaged before but had not set a wedding date – which police said would hopefully help “alleviate” their trauma (its not clear if the couple chose to got married so soon after or if they were pressured into it).
Parades of shame for adulterers or anyone found getting intimate outside of wedlock are sadly common in parts of Indonesia, especially in rural areas, and the abusers often escape any criminal charges. In August, a couple who had allegedly committed adultery were paraded through the streets of a village in East Java, only for the police to charge the man for adultery but not the neighborhood busybodies who abused the couple.
