Siti Mariam Binte Isa

Bandar Seri Begawan - Siti Mariam Isa, 44, had repeatedly tried to deport her husband from Brunei, it was alleged in the Brunei Magistrate's Court yesterday.

In the dock is Ivica @ Adam Kalebic her husband of 19 years who allegedly burned her with a cigarette butt on her left cheek on midnight of June 11, 2005.

Adam, 62, a Croatian and who runs the top end restaurant Fratini's is alleged to have kicked, karate chopped, punched and strangled Siti Mariam, who is the daughter of Pehin Isa. The alleged incident happened during a domestic quarrel, the court heard.

They have four children. Adam is denying all charges.

Chief Magistrate Abdullah Soeffri is hearing the case while DPP Suriana Radin is prosecuting. Counsel Yusof Halim is defending.

During the course of cross-examination by Defence Counsel Yusof Halim yesterday, he asked whether Siti Mariam had attempted to deport her own husband out of Brunei.

It was suggested to her that her police report of the alleged assault lodged on October 17, 2005 was one of a series of attempts by her to deport her husband from the country. She denied this and said she had never attempted to deport her husband.

She admitted writing to the Immigration Authority of Brunei telling them that her husband was suffering from Hepatitis B.

She explained that she only did so to find out if her husband had lied to the Immigration authorities and not intending to deport him.

Siti Mariam is the owner of Danieli Trading. She was shown a letter that she signed on July 7, 2004 and agreed that while her husband was in Croatia, she cancelled his work pass in Brunei and alleged that he had committed some serious and dishonest acts in the company.

She however admitted that the husband had never been prosecuted in either the civil or criminal courts for the serious allegations that she had made in this letter.

In another Danieli Trading letter after this, she again tried to cancel the husband's work pass in Brunei.

She repeated that there were only three reasons for the delay in making the police report of the alleged assault.

She was then showed a letter from her lawyer to her husband soon after the alleged assault. In this letter Siti Mariam had demanded the husband to divorce her and to make additional monetary compensation otherwise she would lodge a police report of the assault.

It was then suggested to her that she had attempted to get the maid who was working for her then, to make false accusations against Adam.

She denied this. Counsel then asked about a person by the name of Milan Fabjan from Croatia.

Siti Mariam agreed that she had brought him down at her own expense and he had stayed at her house for five days. She accepted that he was to be a witness but denied that she had persuaded him to give false evidence against the defendant.

The complainant also agreed that after the assault, the whole family includingler parents wanted to go to Croatia to celebrate the 80th birthday of Adam's father. She said that this was planned earlier although she could not recall if the tickets were bought after the alleged assault.

She said that she was very confused then and did not want to disappoint her father in law in Croatia. However the trip to Croatia was cancelled at the last minute.

She agreed that on November 12, 2005 she had made a report to the Religious Affairs Department about her husband.

Prosecution objected to this line of questioning arguing that it has no relevance to the hearing.

Defence Counsel argued that the report he was going to refer to is specifically about the incident of June 11 2005 which is the incident of the alleged assault by Ivica Adam Kalebic.

Siti Mariam agreed that she was assisted by lawyers when she made this report.

Counsel pointed out to her that this report was very unlike the evidence she had given. She agreed that in this report to the religious affairs department, she said the defendant threw cigarette ashes at her and not the ashtray.

The report, it was put to her, suggested that all the alleged assaults occurred at the same place with no mention of any assault at the corridor.

She initially said that the report which was in Malay had been wrongly translated into English, there had been some 'lost in translation'.

She said the words 'when I stood up' should be translated 'whilst I was standing'.

However when pressed, she agreed that this report made no mention of her being assaulted at the corridor. She also agreed that she made no mention of the defendant strangling her. In her evidence in court she said that the husband strangled het 'in a frenzied attack'.

She said that she had `forgotten' to put down the fact that she had been strangled by her husband in both her reports there was also no mention of the defendant punching her.

Counsel pointed that in the report she had said the injuries to her face, neck and other parts of her body was because her husband 'kicked me with his legs'.

When slit gave evidence on this she recounted being strangled, karate chops and punched. To this difference, she at first said that there was a problem with the translation.

The court interjected that the question put was a simple done that in her report she said the injuries were caused from being kicked. The complainant then said that the lawyers who advised her had not been 'entirely correct' in setting out what happened.

Counsel then promptly produced another report to the Religious Affairs Department dated 7.12.05 where she had changed parts of her earlier report of November 12, 2005. She and her lawyers had 'left undisturbed' the errors in her account of the assault although other parts of the earlier report were changed.

Turning to the report by Dr Ivor Lim who was a witness for the prosecution, Mariam Isa stated that Dr Lim is a skin specialist in private practice and although she had complained about burning cigarette ashes being thrown and stinging her face, she made no complaints of this to the doctor.

Healing continued-- Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin

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