Bali contract killing sealed with pinky swear
The wife of an Australian man murdered in Bali had admitted ordering his killing, but says she told his alleged assassins not to do it “sadistically”.
A re-enactment of the death of Robert Ellis was carried out on Monday, involving his wife Noor, her two maids, three men arrested for the crime, and with police officers playing the parts of two men still wanted.
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The body of the 60-year-old was found wrapped in plastic and dumped in a rice field on October 21.
Ms Noor could face the death penalty for arranging the grisly crime.
The usually stylish millionaire’s wife wore prison-issue orange on Monday as she demonstrated for police and the media the October 19 meeting with the alleged killers.
“I only told you that you could kill him but not sadistically,” she said during the re-enactment to one of the men, Urbanus.
Urbanus, who was only arrested after being shot and captured after fleeing to the island of Sumba, replied: “I still remember you said that to me.”
She sealed the deal by linking pinky fingers with one of the men still on the run.
They then re-constructed how Ms Noor handed Aril, a boyfriend of one of her maids, a brown envelope containing Rp 100 million as payment.
She had passed the package through the window of her car while parked in a Sanur street.
Following her request not to be sadistic, the men abandoned plans to use wooden sticks.
Instead, Mr Ellis was to have his throat slashed in the kitchen of his Sanur villa later that night, after Ms Noor took the men there to survey it.
Before Monday’s re-enactment, Ms Noor, a successful dive business operator, had claimed she ordered the men to hurt her husband, not kill him.
She says she was bitter about her husband’s infidelity and the division of their finances.
Her defence lawyer has said she was stunned to discover her husband dead, and was “hysterical, frightened and confused.”
The couple’s two sons live and study in Perth.
Mr Ellis, whose business interests spanned property, telecommunications and aviation, was laid to rest in New Zealand.