INDONESIA: MILITARY COURT SENTENCES SOLDIER TO DEATH FOR MURDERING TWO WOMEN

In Indonesia, the Bandung Military Court II-09 handed down a death penalty for 23-year-old Second Pvt. Mart Azzanul Ikhwan for murdering a pregnant woman and her mother in Garut.
“The defendant, Mart Azzanul Ikhwan, has been found — both legally and convincingly — to have carried out premeditated murders. We hand down the death penalty,” said presiding judge Lt. Col. Sugeng Sutrisno, as he read out the verdict.
The verdict was much heavier than that demanded by the oditur (military prosecutors), who recommended a 20-year jail term and a discharge from service for the soldier from the Army’s Strategic Reserve Command (Kostrad) 303rd Infantry Battalion.
Relatives of the deceased Opon, 39, and her daughter Shinta, 19, expressed their joy at the verdict to the point where Sugeng had to calm them down.
The murders took place in February after Shinta — then eight months pregnant — said Mart was the father of her child and that he should take responsibility.
When Mart refused to do so, Opon threatened to file a report with his superior.
Mart then brought the two women to a vegetable orchard in Panagan hamlet, Sukawargi village, Garut regency, West Java, on a motorcycle while carrying a bayonet.
Telling the women that the area could only be accessed on foot, the three set off to the orchard, with Mart killing Opon first, then Shinta, en route.