Conviction Claimed spiritual healing or mediumship Lubuk Pakam, North Sumatra, Indonesia · 1998

Indonesia: dukun executed after 42 murders of women who came to him for spiritual help

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

dukun (traditional healer and sorcerer) with a standing client base

Organization

No organization assigned

Spiritual nexus

CORE: the victims were his own clients — women who came to a healer for help and were killed inside the ritual frame that brought them to him.

Evidence structure

Proceedings

1998-04-27 · conviction affirmed at every level; executed

Lubuk Pakam District Court; Medan High Court; Supreme Court of Indonesia. Ahmad Suradji, a dukun practising near Medan, was convicted on 27 April 1998 of forty-two counts of premeditated murder — women and girls drawn from his healing clientele, buried to the waist and strangled in a rite he told investigators was meant to increase his mystical powers. The conviction was upheld by the Medan High Court and the Indonesian Supreme Court, and he was executed on 10 July 2008.

victims drawn from his own healing clientele
ritual burial to the waist before strangulation, performed as a rite to increase his mystical power

Primary record

national newspaper court reporting case history report The Jakarta Post: reporting on the case and the pending execution.: National paper of record.

Related record