Asria Nur Hasan, a 56-year old farmer, was quoted by CNN today as describing Siti Aisyah as a doting daughter and generous friend, devout to her religion and those she loves.
“She wouldn’t harm anyone, not a child, let alone someone so powerful like that,” he was quoted as saying at the family home in Rancasumur near the town of Serang, about 100km west of Jakarta.
“She will be proven innocent… My daughter would not have done such a thing, if she was not used by someone,” he added.
He said Siti Aisyah had told him before her arrest that she had landed a job “shooting a film in Malaysia” and wanted him to wish her luck.
“We didn’t see this coming at all. I don’t think she would have been in all this at all if it wasn’t because of other people using her, getting her wrapped up in all this,” he was quoted as saying.
On March 1, Siti Aisyah, 25, and Vietnamese national Doan Thi Huong, 28, were charged in the Sepang Sessions Court with murder under section 302 of the Penal Code, which carries the mandatory death penalty upon conviction.
They were accused of involvement in the killing of Jong Nam, the estranged half-brother of North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Un, at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 (klia2) on Feb 13.
In the incident, Jong Nam was allegedly assassinated when two women suddenly appeared before him and wiped his face with the palms of their hands that contained what was later identified as the deadly VX nerve agent.
Asria, who lives with his 50-year old wife Benah, said he missed Siti Aisyah and felt bad for her.
“I don’t believe all this could be happening. How could somebody do this to my child?” he was quoted as saying.
He said she had called him from prison after her arrest in March. It was his last conversation with her.
“I was surprised. I couldn’t help but to cry,” he said.
“(She said to me) Please pray for me, abah (father). Pray for me so all this will end soon. So that everything will be made easy. So that I can go home to Indonesia soon. That Allah will help me, will protect me, will remove me from Malaysia,” Asria added.
In May, the BBC reported Benah as saying that Siti Aisyah had told her about a job offer in Malaysia before the klia2 incident.
“She said she wanted to go to Malaysia for filming on a show to make people surprised by spraying perfume on somebody else,” Benah was quoted as saying.
“She was offered a job by someone to become an advertisement model for perfume. And she’s an innocent girl that did it because it was good money.”