Enno Farihah: Raped and Murdered with a Gardening Hoe by the 3 Men She Rejected

10 min readJul 8, 2021

--

Banten, Indonesia [2016]

Two Lovers Torn Apart by an Arranged Marriage

Selfie of Enno Farihah (Taken from Enno’s Facebook)

In this case, the parents of Enno Farihah (18 y/o) insisted on her marrying another man that they believe would be better suited for her than her boyfriend, Rahmat Alim Als Amat Bin Nayudin (16 y/o) [Will be referred to as ‘RA’]. Matchmaking and arranged marriages are common in Indonesia, especially for their culture and religion, and as a dutiful daughter, Enno agreed to her parents’ wishes.

They only wanted what was best for her, after all. Enno graduated from the Indonesia University of Education (UPI) and was currently working as an employee at the PT Ployta Global Mandiri factory. Meanwhile, her boyfriend was still a student at a neighbouring junior high school and their relationship was not recognised by her parents.

Having heard the news that she was willing to go ahead with the arranged marriage, RA pleaded to have one last meeting just to kiss and hug her goodbye. She agreed, believing that no harm would come from fulfilling such an innocent request, so she invited him over to her room at her women-only dormitory.

On the night of 12th May 2016, at 11.30 pm, RA was allowed through the dormitory’s gates and into Enno’s room. They embraced and spoke for about 30 minutes.

And then he began undressing her, with the intention of intercourse.

Enno balked at his request and refused, out of fear that she might get pregnant. Even though he should have expected that he might be rejected, considering that he did ask her, RA took her answer poorly and immediately stormed out of the dormitory, leaving his girlfriend alone.

Encounter with the Two Factory Men

But RA hadn’t left the residential grounds. He had walked out into the streets between the female-only and the male-only dormitories.

At 12.30 am, as he puffed through two cigarettes, he was approached by Rahmat Arifin bin Hartono (24 y/o) [Will be referred to as ‘RH’] and Imam Hapriadi (24 y/o). Both men were residents of the male-only dormitory. Before that night, RA had never met either of the two men but the trio hit it off right away.

At first, RH and Imam did not realise that RA was referring to Enno when the latter spoke of his girlfriend. They joked around with him and encouraged him to bring them to her room, so that they could see for themselves who the mystery girlfriend was.

Additionally, a discussion sparked amongst the three men where RA confided in them about the whole matchmaking fiasco and how Enno rejected him. The conversation escalated to the point that the two factory workers started to chide him:

“Just rape her! There’s no way that she’ll be your girlfriend in the future anyways.”

Perhaps such thoughts were already brewing in RA’s mind, for it didn’t take long before they made their way back to the dormitory. The gates of the dormitory, that could only be opened by residents from the inside, were left unlocked. Enno’s door was left ajar too, possibly reassured by the promised security of her residency. The trio found her asleep on her bed.

Upon seeing Enno’s face, the two factory men realised that they knew her all too well. Both had made advances towards her but were always rejected. Allegedly, Enno had always called RH ‘ugly’ whenever they crossed paths while Imam’s text messages and calls would always be ignored. As they stared at her sleeping unsuspectingly on the bed, emotions of jealousy, anger and hatred began to bubble up in them.

The Torture, Rape and Murder

Imam immediately started smothering Enno with a pillow, and ordered RA to look for a kitchen knife. When RA failed to find a kitchen knife, he ventured out into the grounds and picked up a gardening hoe. By the time he returned to the room, Imam was still attempting to suffocate Enno, who had nearly lost unconsciousness, while RH was pinning down her legs.

Imam then ordered RA to hack at the struggling girl’s face with the plate of the gardening hoe until the point of disfigurement. The boy carried out the instructions obediently but at the first sight of the blood, he was so unsettled that he dropped the tool and left the room for a breather.

Yet the torture didn’t end there. RH started to rape her and upon finishing, Imam continued to mutilate the Enno’s face with a dining fork that he brought from home.

In time to see Imam covering her face with blood-soaked linen and repositioning her limbs into an even more explicit position, RA re-entered the room. But not because he had a change of heart and decided to save his girlfriend before she succumbed to her injuries.

Instead, RA was still so annoyed at Enno that he started to bite her left breast until it left an imprint of his teeth.

RH then inserted the rod of the gardening hoe into Enno’s vagina and proceeded to kick it into her body. 90% of the entire gardening hoe was forced into her body, rupturing most of her vital organs, including her lungs, her stomach and her heart. Due to the force of the kick, RA was showered with a spray of the victim’s blood.

X-Ray of Enno’s Torso, Showing the Gardening Hoe Impalement (Credits: Detik.com)

An autopsy would later unveil her cause of death: Both the impalement with the gardening hoe and a separate blunt force trauma to her neck.

The three men then covered her body with pillows and blankets, and washed their hands. Before fleeing the scene, RH padlocked the victim’s room from outside and threw the key back into the room through the ventilation. Enno would only be found a day after, when co-workers entered her room out of concerns over her not turning up for work.

The Investigation: Three Sleepless Days and Nights

The Three Perpetrators (Credits: Rengga Sancaya, Detik.com)

On the Sunday right after the crime, investigators from Jatanras Polda Metro Raya (Jakarta Metro Police) and the IT team from Mabes Polri (Indonesia’s Police Headquarters) successfully brought in RH and Imam, through witnesses’ accounts and remnants of her blood in their house (Please note that this article states that the victim’s handphone was actually found in RH’s possession, however the police report states that the handphone was actually in RA’s possession).

The Tuesday after, RA was arrested as well.

Throughout the three days and nights of having brought in these three suspects, the Tangerang Metro Police and the Jaya Metro Police worked tirelessly to examine the crime scene and accumulate the evidence against these possible perpetrators. It would have gone longer had there not been an abundance of sperm left in Enno’s room, due to the men’s rush to leave the scene, and the suspects’ prompt and detailed confession.

RA admitted that his motive for torturing and killing his girlfriend was out of jealousy over her arranged marriage with another man, and he was only further angered by her rejections to his sexual advances onto her.

In a 2017 report, it was stated that RH and Imam were sentenced to the death penalty after the panel of judges assessed that both were legally proven to have committed premediated murder and rape. The defendants’ legal counsel attempted to appeal the sentence, but the verdict remained the same as the prosecutor’s demands.

Could RA be innocent?

During RA’s trial, his father, Nayudin, maintained his belief that his son was innocent and continued to pray for him, even as the courtroom was filled with shouts and insults from the audience who sympathised with Enno. The father stood by his belief, despite hearing from the judge’s statement that there is no way that RA can be proven innocent, considering his saliva and fingerprints that were on Enno’s body.

Nayudin argued that he had performed the Tahajud prayer with his son, who had slept beside him the night of the murder, thus making it impossible for him to have gone to Enno’s dormitory. Furthermore, he explained that RA had Enno’s white Prince handphone in his possession because another man, called Dimas, had sold it to him. Nayudin insisted that he spoke the truth, especially because the trial was being held during the month of fasting. He continued to pray as he held on to his son’s hand, who himself seemed resigned to his fate.

His persistence mattered little. The Tangerang District Court judged RA as legally and convincingly involved in the murder of Enno. But as he was legally not of age, he received only 10 years of imprisonment.

A Mother’s Tears over a Punishment Incomparable to the Death of her Child

Mother of Enno Farihah in Tears (Credits: Warta Kota/Banu Adikara)

While Nayudin wept over his son’s sentencing, believing it too much, the mother of Enno stood up and shouted at RA’s attorney, calling him cruel and sadistic for supporting the defendant. She asked him if he would have done the same had the victim been his own child.

Mahfudoh’s outburst was in response to RA’s attorney, Alfan Sari, wishing to file an appeal. Her shouts were supported by the audience who spoke up scornfully as well, calling the attorney crazy for wishing to appeal. At the end of the trial, one of the men from the audience yelled through the doors, calling out to his friends outside to get ready.

Hundreds of residents, majority of them being youths, swarmed the court gates, in search of RA. This was a plan they had prepared before the trial, in the scenario that the verdict was not in the favour. None of Enno’s supporters and loved ones felt that 10 years was enough of a punishment. They sought the death penalty for RA and if the law could not help them achieve it, they were willing to take matters into their own hands.

The police rushed to protect the courtroom and rocks started to fly. While the anger of the public was understandable, it was futile to try and attain justice through this method, especially when RA was securely kept in the court building with his lawyer. Fortunately, the police managed to calm the crowd, with only a single casualty in the form of an officer getting hit in the head by a fist-sized rock.

Aftermath of the Enno’s Old Residency and her Last Facebook Post

The death of Enno emptied out the female-only dormitory. None of the residents wanted to stay there as their thoughts often strayed to their former colleague and the torture she went through. Some of the residents opted to move to the male-only dormitory, where they felt safer.

Yahya, a resident of the male-only dormitory, blames himself and his male colleagues for not realising what was happening to Enno. He said that they should have been more aware, especially as her room was so close to their dormitory. Upon realising that his colleague RH was involved in the murder, he was shocked. He didn’t think that RH would have the heart to commit such a sin, as the assailant was always known to be the comedian in their group of friends.

According to Sari and Adel, who are friends of Enno, the victim was always someone who was very cheerful and was good at hiding her personal problems. She carried the same attitude into cyberspace where she was always careful to mind her words and not incite any trouble.

Enno’s Last Post on Facebook (Credits: Screenshot from Enno’s Facebook Page)

Even in her last post on Facebook, she showed the same thoughtfulness. The translation is ‘Respect me, it’s for your own good too’. It is suspected that this post could be towards one of the two factory men (RH and Imam) who made unwanted advances on her. This was uploaded less than a week prior to her death.

My Thoughts

This case made me feel physically sick, especially as it happened to someone so young and undeserving of such brutality. I haven’t been able to find any platforms where we can support Enno’s family and it may be because this happened 5 years ago. But if any of the readers know of a way, perhaps there’s still some fundraising going on or any campaigns in her memory, comment below!

I was reminded of Junko Furuta’s death while reading up on Enno. I’m sure that people who know of both cases can spot the similarities: When entitled monsters can’t take ‘No’ for an answer.

There were graphic photos of Enno that detailed more of the torture, but I decided to refrain from uploading them here because it was too much. I shall continue to cover more Indonesian cases because I realise that a lot of the information is all over the place and not a lot of it is in English. Let me know what other cases to follow up on! Also, if there are any inaccuracies, do tell me as my Bahasa Indonesia isn’t perfect 😢