PETALING JAYA: The mother of Indonesian domestic helper Adelina Lisao, who died last year of injuries suffered during her employment, has expressed shock over a recent court decision to free the accused in her daughter’s murder.
Yohana Banunaek said she was always feeling remorseful after her daughter, 26, left their home in Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia, to find work and send back money for her family.
“But now I hear the news that her employer has been set free in Malaysia,” Banunaek said in Uab Meto, an ethnic language native to East Indonesia, through a YouTube video published yesterday.
“I can’t accept this. Why was her employer freed?
“If she has been freed in Malaysia,” she added, “we ask that the employer be brought to Kupang because we want to meet her.”
Adelina repeated her claims that her daughter died “not because she was sick but because she was tortured”.
“She slept with a dog and ate with a dog,” she added, in a choked voice, struggling to hold back tears.
She also appealed to the Malaysian government, “as the one which makes decisions”, NGOs and religious leaders to assist her family in “finding a solution” and see that justice is finally served.
Adelina was reportedly only 17 years old when she was sent abroad. It was reported that the forged documents indicated that Adelina was six years older than her actual age.
Her mother previously said that a man she did not identify had come to their remote village, about seven hours’ drive from Kupang, offering her daughter a job in Malaysia, but they refused.
“The man came again with all this fake paperwork and the next day we could not find Adelina. We believe she had gone with the man,” Banunaek was quoted as saying last year.
Adelina later worked for Ambika MA Shan at her semi-detached house in Taman Kota Permai in Bukit Mertajam, Penang.
A concerned neighbour spotted her with wounds on her hands and legs.
She alerted the office of Bukit Mertajam MP Steven Sim, whose aides informed the police as well as the human rights NGO, Tenaganita.
She was taken to the Bukit Mertajam Hospital, where she later died.
Adelina had also been reportedly seen sleeping next to a Rottweiler in the back porch of the house for two months.
Ambika was acquitted of murdering Adelina at the High Court on April 18, after prosecutors asked for a discharge not amounting to an acquittal (DNAA).
She had been detained since Feb 21 last year.
Her acquittal sparked a backlash from local civic groups as well as Indonesia, which said Ambika’s release meant Adelina had been denied justice.
Sim has come out to say that Attorney-General Tommy Thomas had responded to him that he will personally investigate this matter to look into the next course of action. - FMT
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