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Topic : Text Analysis

Faculty : Faculty of Law Unikal
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GUILTY AS CHARGED?:
NEW DOCUMENTARY REIGNITES DEBATE ON JESSICA WONGSO'S INFAMOUS CASE

Guilty?: The new documentary from Netflix shed lights on the controversies surrounding Jessica
Kumala Wongso’s trial in 2016 for the murder of Wayan Mirna Salihin. (Courtesy of Netflix/-)

Radhiyya Indra (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta ● Sat, October 7, 2023

The Jakarta Post

“I have so many new questions after watching this documentary,” Yuris (@yuristianaa) posted on
social media platform X, formerly called Twitter, on Sept. 29.

Yuris was referring to Ice Cold: Murder, Coffee and Jessica Wongso, the first documentary that
streaming service Netflix produced in Indonesia, directed by Rob Sixsmith.

The documentary focuses on the sensational case of Jessica Kumala Wongso, an Indonesian living in
Australia who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for the premeditated murder of her friend Wayan
Mirna Salihin at a coffee shop in 2016.

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The controversial trial prompted several documentaries as well as public speculation, but the new
Netflix documentary, released on Sept. 28, has sparked new interest and debate among the public as
it has portrayed the case in a different light seven years later.

Widely referred to as the “cyanide coffee case” because of Mirna’s possible cause of death, the
incident created a months-long media circus and drew millions of viewers on national television.
“There has never been a similar case [in Indonesia] that has attracted as much public attention as
this one,” Hardly Stefano, commissioner of the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPI), says in
the documentary.

Because the case fell under extreme public scrutiny in Indonesia and neighboring countries, Stefano
likened it to O. J. Simpson’s trial for the murder of his ex-wife in the United States. But unlike O. J.,
Jessica was neither famous nor a public figure prior to committing murder.

“I just couldn’t understand why this happened to me,” Jessica said in a Zoom meeting in January
2022 from the Pondok Bambu women’s prison in East Jakarta.

Compiled with new and original interviews, the documentary considers Jessica’s opinion for the first
time since her imprisonment.

“It’s been really difficult, it’s just really hard to stay sane every day,” she said, adding that the media
frenzy was “traumatic” for her.

Jessica, known as “the smiling coffee killer” for her unrelenting smile, said the judges’ decision might
have been different if public attention had not been so intense at the time.

But her interview was cut short by a prison guard because it had “gone too far”. In response to this
scene, the Law and Human Rights Ministry’s Corrections Directorate General spokesperson Rika
Aprianti said that the interview violated the permit regulations.

“The interview did not relate to the prisoner’s human development intent as required in the Law and
Human Rights Ministerial Regulation,” Rika said on Oct. 1, as quoted by detik.com.

Evidence reconstructed

Ice Cold presents various sources to reconstruct the case’s timeline, including witnesses and
prosecutors integral in the trial, as well as friends and family of Jessica and Mirna.

But what sets this documentary apart from others is its supportive inclusion of Jessica’s arguments,
which had previously been overshadowed by the public’s perception of her as the “crazy lady”, as a
street food seller puts it in the documentary.

“There was a ton of confusing and sensational chatter at the time,” Mirna’s twin, Sandy Salihin, says
in the film.

Every ounce of Jessica and Mirna’s backgrounds and personal lives were spun into speculation by the
millions following the case. Most people assumed that Jessica’s motive was rooted in the rift in their
friendship that started when Mirna criticized Jessica’s then-boyfriend.

The film also depicts almost the entire chronology of the trial in the Central Jakarta District Court,
which lasted from June 15 to Oct. 27, 2016.

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It follows the court drama and shows how some scientific evidence, like the differing doses of
cyanide found in the coffee and Mirna’s body, led experts to draw different conclusions. The fact
that Mirna’s family did not allow her body to be autopsied further added to the confusion.

The film also highlights how Jessica was victim of negative profiling in court because of her
mannerisms. “If she wasn’t guilty, she would’ve been crying [in the courthouse],” Mirna’s father Edi
Darmawan Salihin says in the documentary.

All smiles: Jessica Kumala Wongso (fourth left) smiles as her lawyers consoled her after judges found
her guilty of murder at the Central Jakarta Court on Oct. 27, 2016. (Courtesy of Netflix/-)

Experts brought by the prosecutors claimed she was vengeful because her body language and facial
expressions did not display remorse. Forensic psychologist Reza Indragiri debunked this argument in
the documentary, saying that “empirical research” is an obsolete theory.

The film wrestled with the controversial verdict and whether the evidence presented against Jessica
was enough to put her in jail. “We relied on circumstantial evidence,” public prosecutor Shandy
Handika says in the documentary, adding that evidence from CCTV footage around the time of death
was more than enough to prove that only Jessica could have committed the crime. But some, like
Jessica’s chief lawyer Otto Hasibuan, argued that there is no hard evidence proving that Jessica killed
Mirna.

Different light and new debate

With the documentary’s new angle, more social media users in Indonesia and abroad have started to
lean more toward Jessica’s side, in contrast with 2016. “[And] I thought the US government was bad.
This was such an unfair case, no full evidence was shown,” user @thatchickalex_ said on X on Sept.
30. Freelance illustrator Nunu believed that many viewers watching the trial on TV in 2016 had no
other sources to rely on, hence the almost uniform opinion that Jessica was guilty.

“As a member of Gen Z, I was part of that crowd that was swayed by the media’s one-sided
reporting,” the 24-year-old told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday, adding that people were now more
critical of the trial regardless of who they think is guilty. Ira, a 24-year-old law graduate, thinks that
the prosecutors might have forced their hands a bit in this case since their credibility was on the line.
“In a country where the judicial system does not rely on a jury, the public sort of became the jury.

So, public opinion did have a strong hold on the case,” she told the Post on Thursday.

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Indonesia’s justice system does not use a jury trial system, and instead uses a bench trial involving a
judge or a panel of an off number of judges to form a verdict after examining evidence in the court.

Failed effort: Jessica Kumala Wongso’s chief lawyer Otto Hasibuan speaks about his steadfast belief
that his client is innocent in the documentary. The subtitles read “I am confident that she is
innocent.” (Courtesy of Netflix/-)

Former Supreme Court justice Gayus Lumbuun, however, opined that the judges’ verdict was
already backed by enough evidence as defined by the Criminal Law Procedures Code (KUHAP), which
includes witnesses and expert admissions and how they point to the defendant being guilty. “That is
enough valid evidence, and the verdict was based on this,” Gayus said to the Post on Thursday.

Deputy Law and Human Rights Minister Edward “Eddy” O.S. Hiariej says in the documentary that
Jessica and her lawyer simply lost because they were the ones who “couldn’t provide any hard
evidence or experts to convince the judge that she wasn’t a murderer.” But Erasmus Napitupulu, the
executive director at the Institute for Criminal Justice Reform, believes that it only casts a light upon
Indonesia’s flawed justice system.

“It’s how the Indonesian criminal justice system was able to find someone guilty despite lingering
doubts. If you hypothetically think of Jessica’s case as reasonable, then I’ll let you imagine how other
cases are carried out in Indonesia,” Erasmus says in the film.

Committed: Edi Darmawan Salihin, father of the late Mirna Salihin, talks about his attempt to send
his daughter’s killer to prison. (Courteys of Netflix/-)

Adythia Utama, a Jakarta-based documentary filmmaker, assessed that the documentary itself is
quite neutral in its presentation. Facts supporting the argument that Jessica is guilty, like her 14
criminal offenses in Australia, are still shown in the latter half of the film. “Every documentary has an
angle, and chances of bias always exist,” Adythia said to the Post on Thursday. “But I think, at the

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end, Ice Cold wants to expose the ways in which Indonesia’s judicial system is flawed,” he added.

Questions:
Answer the following questions as complete as possible. Please always check your spelling &
grammar.
A. Identify and write the sentences based on each tenses and the Passive of the text above.
No Remark Sentence
1 Past tense

2 Present tense

3 Present Continuous
tense

4 Future tense

5 Present Perfect tense

6 Conditional sentence

7 Passive voice

B. Identify the legal terms and the meanings in the text.

C. Answer these questions which designed to encourage critical thinking and a deeper
understanding of the issues in the article:
1. What is the focus of the Netflix documentary "Ice Cold: Murder, Coffee and Jessica Wongso,"
and why is it generating renewed interest in the case?
2. How did the media coverage of Jessica Wongso's trial compare to other high-profile trials,
both in Indonesia and internationally?
3. What were some of the challenges that Jessica Wongso faced during her trial, and how did
the media frenzy impact her?
4. How did the documentary present Jessica Wongso's perspective on the case, and why was
her interview with the media cut short?
5. What role did scientific evidence play in the trial, and why did it lead to differing conclusions
about Jessica's guilt?
6. What were the arguments made by both the prosecution and the defense regarding Jessica
Wongso's guilt, and how did experts weigh in on these arguments?
7. How has public opinion about Jessica Wongso's guilt evolved over time, and what factors
have contributed to this change?
8. What role does the absence of a jury trial system play in Indonesia's justice system, and how
does it impact the public's perception of cases like Jessica Wongso's?

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9. What are some of the contrasting opinions presented by legal experts in the documentary
regarding the evidence and the judges' verdict?
10. In what way does the documentary aim to shed light on flaws within Indonesia's judicial
system, and what does this imply about the broader legal context in the country?

***Do your best!***