Interpreting Murder Case

Last Monday on Sep 7th 2015, a dead body of young Japanese woman was found in her apartment in Jakarta. On Wednesday Sep 10th 2015, I was hired as interpreter for Japanese – Bahasa for the victim’s parent, victim’s boss, polices (both from Indonesia and Japan).

It was really a heartbreaking experience to see the parent’s loss. We spent our time at Police’s office and Hospital where the body was kept. For the investigation’s purpose, the police needed to ask many standard questions to the parent, such as when was the last contact etc (I will not go into details of the questions). At the hospital, it really brings tears to see the parents crying over their daughter’s body. This is actually the first time for me to interpret the dead body confirmation process inside corpse room.

After confirming the body of their daughter, the father gave this statement : “I want to avoid that the image of Indonesia will get hurt because of this incident. My daughter loves Indonesia a lot. I do not want to give perception that Indonesia is a horrible place. I think that is not my daughter’s wish”. This really shows the Japanese Heart and Japanese goodness. I really moved by the statement and really salute them.

A day later, Indonesian police managed to found and catch the murder suspect. Although this doesn’t bring their daughter back, but I do hope the parents could have some peace of mind knowing that the case has been solved rather quickly by the Police. Another interesting point to note is, since I was the official interpreter for the parent, and the parent chose not to participate in law court of Indonesia, the police said that I might be summoned to represent the parent’s statement.