REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- The Head of Task Force to free Satinah, Muhammad Maftuh Basyuni, stated that he was deplored by Manpower and Transmigration Minister Muhaimin Iskandar's statement, accusing his team of unprofessionalism.

"He (the manpower minister) thought we are not well versed in Arabic and that had caused the failure to reduce the amends," Maftuh explained during a press conference with Coordinating Minister of Politic Law and Defense Djoko Suyanto, here on Tuesday (April 15).

In fact, Maftuh confirmed that the members of the task force team are competent, including the Indonesian Ambassador to Saudi Arabia.

"Even the dreams of the ambassador are in Arabic," he quipped.

On the other hand, Maftuh questioned the contribution of the Workers and Transmigration Ministry related to Satinah's case, which was nothing.

"The reality is that the Minister of Manpower and Transmigration was had no contributions and instructions for what we had to do," Maftuh declared.

Satinah, an Indonesian migrant worker in Saudi Arabia, faced death sentence for murdering her employee, but then was released by the court. The Indonesian government had created a task force, lead by Maftuh Basyuni, to negotiate amends with the family of the victim as part of the conditions to free Satinah.

The negotiation between the Indonesian government and the victim's family proved difficult since the victim's family felt that the officials' statements in Indonesia offended the victim.

Maftuh explained that his team should have met some well-known figures in Saudi Arabia in order to gather support during the negotiation process.

Maftuh added that the family's inconsistency about the amends number also complicated the negotiation process.

But in the end, they settled at 7 million Riyals from 15 million Riyal during the earlier negotiations.

"There is a guarantee from the court that they cancelled Satinah's death sentence and with this agreement, it has been proved that there's no amends mafia involved," Maftuh stressed.

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