In December last year, a rare case of matricide, in which a child killed their mother, shocked Indonesia and prompted questions about the appropriate punishment for such a gruesome crime.
Last week, a verdict was handed down by a court in the city of Medan in Indonesia’s North Sumatra Province, and which to some observers may have appeared equally surprising.
After being found guilty of stabbing her mother some 26 times with a kitchen knife, the perpetrator, identified only as AL by the Indonesian police, was sentenced to just five months of counseling and rehabilitative treatment.
The reasoning behind the sentence that some may view as extremely lenient?
The perpetrator of the crime was just 12 years old at the time of her mother’s murder.
The crime itself took place on December 10, 2025, in the early hours of the morning, when AL awoke early and took a knife from the family kitchen that was used for cutting meat. She then stripped down to her underwear, so as not to get blood on her clothes (something she had seen in a TV show), and began to stab her mother, 42-year-old housewife Faizah Soraya.
According to the Indonesian investigators, Soraya was not killed immediately, and was able to ask for a glass of water and an ambulance before she died. Both AL’s 16-year-old sister and father were also at home at the time, and reportedly tried to wrestle the knife from AL and call an ambulance.
Before it arrived however, Soraya was dead.
Following the attack, the police were called and the young girl was charged with murder in accordance with Indonesia’s criminal code and the country’s Juvenile Justice Law which governs perpetrators under the age of 18.
Under Indonesian law, AL was declared a “child in conflict with the law,” and the sentence passed down last week was three months less than the sentence asked for by the prosecution, who had demanded eight months of rehabilitation and counseling.
When passing down the five-month sentence last week, the judge pointed to a number of mitigating factors in the case, including that the young girl admitted to her crime, appeared remorseful, and had behaved well throughout the court process.
The judge also noted that her young age meant that she had a good chance of rehabilitation given the right support, and that her mother’s behavior towards her and her older sister had played a factor in the crime.
According to family members and police investigators, AL’s mother had frequently beaten her two children – sometimes for hours at a time with a belt – and had repeatedly threatened both of the children with a knife.
It was also claimed at the trial that AL had played violent games on the popular gaming platform Roblox and been influenced by the Detective Conan anime series, which featured an episode depicting a murder similar to the one committed by AL, in which a character also removed their clothes so that they would not become stained by blood.
Is age just a number?
While AL’s age was one of the main reasons why this case was so shocking, she was still eligible to be charged as the age of criminal responsibility in Indonesia is 12 years old, and children under the age of 18 fall under the umbrella of Indonesia’s Juvenile Justice Law.
While they are not able to be tried or treated the same as adult offenders over the age of 18, children aged between 12 and 18 in Indonesia can face what is known as “restorative justice” where the emphasis is on support like counseling rather than more punitive punishments like incarceration.
However, while AL’s young age cannot be dismissed in the case, some may feel that five months of rehabilitative counseling rather than a longer fixed term of confinement may not be robust.
After all, AL did take the life of her own mother, and it could be argued that there seemed to be a level of premeditation to her crime, such as securing the kitchen knife and removing her clothes before the murder.
It could also be argued that the number of stab wounds – 26 individual puncture sites – indicated a prolonged and sustained attack with the obvious intent to kill, rather than a brief “crime of passion” in the heat of the moment. AL’s mother was also still conscious after she received the first stab wound, and reportedly tried to plead with her daughter to spare her life – a plea that was ignored.
It could also be argued that, while violent crimes by victims as young as 12 are rare, there are some examples of similar crimes, such as a 2023 case in France where a 15-year-old child named Valentin shot and killed his parents – and was sentenced to 12 years in detention.
In the United Kingdom, in February this year, a 14-year-old boy was sentenced to detention for 11 years in a young offender institution for the stabbing of another 14-year-old and, in the same month, a 15-year-old was sentenced to a minimum of 13 years in detention for the murder of a 12-year-old.
In 1993, also in the United Kingdom, 10-year-olds Robert Thompson and Jon Venables murdered a two-year-old boy named James Bulger, and spent eight years in detention before being released and granted new identities.
In counterpoint to the above examples, that all included some period of extended incarceration, AL’s five months of counseling will take place at a social rehabilitation safe house run by the Indonesian Ministry of Social Affairs.
She has been staying at the safe house since her mother’s murder, and has not been detained in a juvenile detention center or prison as she has been undergoing counseling, rehabilitation and continuing her education.
As such, both the treatment of AL to date and the recent sentence may raise questions about whether Indonesia’s Juvenile Justice System is too indulgent of young offenders, and whether eschewing punitive sanctions altogether allows perpetrators of violent crime to escape justice.
Is the Indonesian Juvenile Justice System rightly restorative rather than merely retributive, or is it too tolerant of underage transgressions?
