DAISY Fajarina, the controversial mother of the equally controversial Manohara Odelia Pinot, may have no choice but to serve a jail sentence in France after all.

The 44-year-old Daisy had been sentenced in absentia (without her presence) by a French court to 18 months' jail for abusing her Indonesian stepdaughter who was staying with her and husband, Rener Pinot Noack, in France, but in 2007 fled to Indonesia, where she has remained a fugitive.

Requests for her to be arrested and sent back to France have been denied as Indonesia and France do not have a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty. That, however, may change soon. The Indonesian Foreign Affairs
Ministry yesterday said it was considering a request to send Daisy to France to serve the sentence.

Indonesian online news portal, Empo Interaktif, quoted minister Hassan Wirajuda as saying yesterday that he had received a report from the Consulate-General in Marseilles, France, requesting that the Indonesian government assist in getting Daisy to serve the sentence.

Hassan said the Consulate-General had made the request on behalf of an Indonesian "whom Manohara's mother had brought to France". While not naming the Indonesian complainant, Hassan said the request involved "sexual abuse" charges that the French court had passed a judgment on.

"As there has already been a judgment in France, the authorities there are asking that Manohara's mother be compelled to return to France." Hassan said the ministry's Foreign Affairs Department, through its Indonesian Citizens' Protection Directorate, would be in consultation with the Indonesian police headquarters to decide on the next course of action.

He added that Daisy's stepdaughter had the right to see that justice was served in view of the official request by the French authorities and taking into consideration that she had been a victim of sexual assault.

Tongue-in-cheek, Hassan remarked that this would only heighten interest in the 25-episode "sinetron", or soap opera, based on Manohara's allegations that her husband the Tengku Temenggung Kelantan, Tengku Muhammad Fakhry Sultan Ismail, had abused her.

Malay Mail reported yesterday that Manohara was offered a massive Rp2.5  billion (RM865,285) contract for  the series. Her decision sparked off speculation that she and her mother were cashing in on the latter's publicity.

The Manohara saga has generated massive interest, starting with allegations that she had been badly treated by her husband. Weeks after appearing in public at a reception in Kelantan, she made headlines again when she "escaped" from her husband and his bodyguards from a hotel in Singapore with the assistance of the Singapore police.

Umno Muar division chief Datuk Kadar Shah Sulaiman Ninam Shah had then taken credit for "negotiating" the escape. He had claimed to have been given the blessings of the Kelantan palace - a claim that has since been refuted.

On July 3, Malay Mail had reported, based on French court documents, that Daisy was a fugitive in Indonesia as the magistrate's court in Grasse, France, had sentenced her to 18 months' jail in absentia for "submitting a vulnerable and dependent person to undignified working conditions and assault since 1998".

Pinot, who was sentenced to four months' jail, had admitted in court that he had been forced by Daisy to caress the stepdaughter's body in front of her after undressing the girl. Court documents had also revealed that Daisy had untidily cut her hair as punishment.

Pinot had admitted that he had started in February, 2007, caressing the girl, kissing her, and touching her breast "everyday a little bit more". She managed to avoid him several times before she gave in and had sex with Pinot.

She was a virgin until then. Pinot, in his testimony, claimed that he was too scared of Daisy to stop her acts of violence against the girl.

Daisy fled France, and a warrant of arrest was issued on June 26 the same year.

She is raring to go

DARING Daisy Fajarina says she is ready to return to France to challenge the court judgment. Denying the allegations brought up by her stepdaughter, she told Empo Interaktif that the charges were trumped up by the girl, whom she brought from Southern Sulawesi to stay with her and her husband, Rener Pinot Noack, in France when the girl was 15.

Daisy, who named the girl when giving the interview, claimed that she was hurt when the girl had an affair with Pinot between March and April 2007.

“I was extremely hurt. I had treated her like my own daughter since she was 15, and I was so in love with my husband,” she said.

Daisy said she was ready to challenge the French court judgment. “The allegations are lies...absolute lies,” she said.

However, she did not state why she was absent from proceedings. She claimed that her stepdaughter and Pinot’s affair was “consensual”.

Daisy claimed that she had caught Pinot and her stepdaughter having sex when she returned home one day to collect the handphone she had left it behind.

She claimed that the stepdaughter left the house after the incident. “She did not even leave a letter to apologise, but had asked that the matter not be reported to the French police,” she said.

“However, once she left, she claimed to have been abused, forced to work for long hours and never ever saw the sun.”

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