ASEAN Beat | Society | Southeast Asia

A Rare Case of Matricide Shocked Indonesia — and Now the Verdict Is In

AL, the perpetrator of the crime, was just 12 years of age at the time of her mother’s murder.

In December last year, a rare case of matricide, in which a child killed their mother, shocked Indonesia and prompted questions about the appropriate punishment for such a gruesome crime.

Last week, a verdict was handed down by a court in the city of Medan in Indonesia’s North Sumatra Province, and which to some observers may have appeared equally surprising.

After being found guilty of stabbing her mother some 26 times with a kitchen knife, the perpetrator, identified only as AL by the Indonesian police, was sentenced to just five months of counseling and rehabilitative treatment.

The reasoning behind the sentence that some may view as extremely lenient?

The perpetrator of the crime was just 12 years old at the time of her mother’s murder.

The crime itself took place on December 10, 2025, in the early hours of the morning, when AL awoke early and took a knife from the family kitchen that was used for cutting meat. She then stripped down to her underwear, so as not to get blood on her clothes (something she had seen in a TV show), and began to stab her mother, 42-year-old housewife Faizah Soraya.

According to the Indonesian investigators, Soraya was not killed immediately, and was able to ask for a glass of water and an ambulance before she died. Both AL’s 16-year-old sister and father were also at home at the time, and reportedly tried to wrestle the knife from AL and call an ambulance.

Before it arrived however, Soraya was dead.

Following the attack, the police were called and the young girl was charged with murder in accordance with Indonesia’s criminal code and the country’s Juvenile Justice Law which governs perpetrators under the age of 18.

Under Indonesian law, AL was declared a “child in conflict with the law,” and the sentence passed down last week was three months less than the sentence asked for by the prosecution, who had demanded eight months of rehabilitation and counseling.

When passing down the five-month sentence last week, the judge pointed to a number of mitigating factors in the case, including that the young girl admitted to her crime, appeared remorseful, and had behaved well throughout the court process.

The judge also noted that her young age meant that she had a good chance of rehabilitation given the right support, and that her mother’s behavior towards her and her older sister had played a factor in the crime.

According to family members and police investigators, AL’s mother had frequently beaten her two children – sometimes for hours at a time with a belt – and had repeatedly threatened both of the children with a knife.

It was also claimed at the trial that AL had played violent games on the popular gaming platform Roblox and been influenced by the Detective Conan anime series, which featured an episode depicting a murder similar to the one committed by AL, in which a character also removed their clothes so that they would not become stained by blood.

Is age just a number?

While AL’s age was one of the main reasons why this........

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