Family plans to bring case to int'l court

JAKARTA LIFE'S STYLE. The family of David Hartanto Widjaya, an Indonesian student ruled by Singaporean Coroner's Court to have committed suicide, says it will bring the case before an international court to seek justice for David's death.

David's father, Hartono said his family was still discussing the legal process to challenge the Coroners Court's verdict, which he declared was a conspiracy.

"We will keep moving forward to seek justice for David's death and intend to bring the case before an international court, in Singapore or elsewhere," he told The Jakarta Post from Singapore on Thursday.

"To us, the Coroner's Court did not investigate the cause of David's death."

Singapore's Coroner's Court ruled Wednesday that David, 21, who was studying at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), committed suicide by jumping from a campus building, after allegedly stabbing his professor with a kitchen knife.

The court heard that David searched the Internet for ways to commit suicide and murder before he plunged to his death.

On March 6, David fell to his death from the fourth floor of the NTU building after allegedly stabbing Associate Professor Chan Kap Luk in the back in his office.

David's parents have repeatedly dismissed this theory, claiming their son had no reason to kill himself.

Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda said that David's family had rejected the legal aid offered by the Indonesian government.

Hassan claimed that the Indonesian Embassy in Singapore wanted to be involved in the legal process with regard to David's death and had asked the family to postpone the cremation until the autopsy results were finalized.

"David's family requested the results of the autopsy from the Singaporean government and did not show them to the Indonesian Embassy in Singapore," he said, as quoted by detik.com.

However, Hartono strongly denied the government's claim over the legal aid offered.

"The government never offered us any legal aid. We would never have rejected such aid," he said.

Before the ruling, vice president-elect Boediono asked the court to settle the case fairly, making the call while addressing a forum at the NTU on Tuesday.

David's family filed a request with the Coroner's Court to consider the case a murder, challenging conclusions made by the NTU and the Singaporean Police that David had committed suicide.

Senior Sgt. Joe Ng Suan Teck, who conducted the forensic examination of David's laptop said that text taken from the undergraduate's computer showed he had searched Google for "a good way to commit suicide" as well as the 10 most common suicide methods.

Teck told the court the text fragments he had extracted included Internet searches and links to websites on both suicide and murder.thejakartapost.com