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.
