An Indonesian fairy tale gone wrong

By John M. Glionna, Los Angeles Times, August 1, 2010

JAKARTA,Indonesia – The beautiful young socialite slipped the businessman a notescrawled in eyeliner on a crumpled napkin. "Help me," it pleaded.

She was ateenage Indonesian model who had married a Malaysian prince, but ManoharaOdelia Pinot says her life with him was no fairy tale. Press accounts of herallegations of abuse and tales of her escape from an unhappy marriage havecaptivated this country, and further divided two nations that have long beenSoutheast Asian rivals.

Known acrossIndonesia by her first name, which means "thief of hearts" inSanskrit, Manohara is viewed here as a tragic heroine mistreated by an obsessedsuitor who became outraged when she would not yield to his demands. In KualaLumpur, the Malaysian capital, she's dismissed as a lying gold-digger under thecontrol of a vindictive mother.

For ninemonths, the 18-year-old alleges, she was held captive on the estate of theprince, Tengku Muhammad Fakhry Petra. Grabbing headlines in the Jakarta Globeand other news outlets, she alleged that he cut her with a razor and orderedhis doctor to inject her with a tranquilizer and raped her.

"Imaginesomeone doing something like that to you and you are unable to move, -- youcan't do anything about it," she says softly, her eyes tearing. "Itwas torture, mentally and physically."

Fakhry didnot respond to interview requests. But he sued his wife and her mother, DaisyFajarina, for defamation last summer, and in March, a Malaysian civil courtawarded Fakhry a $1.8-million judgment.

HaaziqPillay, Fakhry's lawyer, says the prince disputed every one of Manohara'sclaims and questions why she avoided the Malaysian court proceedings.

"Fromrape to cutting her with a razor to injecting her -- these are only things amonster would do, a psychopath," Pillay says. "My client wants thetruth to come out.

"Shesaid she was afraid of the security, but this isn't a cowboy society," hesays. "People don't get abducted in the streets here."

Manoharainsists that she will never pay the prince a penny and challenges him to file asecond civil lawsuit in Jakarta, where she says he'd receive a less positivereception. She's also filed a police report, for alleged domestic violence, andwarns that Fakhry will be arrested the moment he sets foot in Indonesia.

Even beforeher marriage into Malaysian royalty, Manohara was considered a rare gem hereand was named one of "Indonesia's 100 Most Precious Women" byHarper's Bazaar Indonesia magazine.

Now,capitalizing on a saga that has obsessed Indonesians much like Tiger Woods'fall from grace in the United States, Manohara stars in a popular TV show abouta young wife abused by her philandering husband, and she demands high fees forspeaking engagements.

Many viewerssimply cannot keep their eyes off the young model, born to an American fatherand Indonesian mother, who has become a cat-eyed Paris Hilton ofIndonesia. A full half-hour documentary on her alleged travails has airedrepeatedly on Jakarta television, "at times almost a continuousloop," according to the Asia Sentinel newspaper.

But noteveryone is captivated.

"Thisis a freak show in a freak-loving country full of two-headed goats and Islamichard-liners," said Wimar Witoelar, who hosts his own TV talk show."It just shows how people with cheap tastes get titillated by cheapstories. That's Manohara."

TheMalaysian businessman who was slipped Manohara's letter pleading for help saysthe 32-year-old prince, a thin man with deeply set dark eyes, wants his wifeback and is pursuing the case against his family's wishes.

He isconvinced that once he has Manohara back, he can persuade her to silence hercriticism and resume their marriage, the businessman said.

"I havenever seen a man so obsessed with a woman," says Dato Kadar Shah, who wasasked by government officials to help solve the matter. "The people in hisprovince also love her. They view her like Princess Diana. He needs her backfor his credibility."

Manohara wasjust 14 when she met her prince.

Fakhry, theson of the monarch of one of Malaysia's nine regional sultanates, approachedthe girl at a party in Jakarta as she sat with her older sister. Within days,Manohara says now, she didn't even recall him.

But Fakhryremembered her. "You have two lovely daughters," Fajarina recalledhim telling her. "I would like to keep in touch with them."

For years,the prince met with Manohara, with Fajarina always by her side. But on onecruise, Manohara alleged in a story in the Jakarta Globe, Fakhry raped herwhile her mother was in an adjoining cabin.

In hissuccessful defamation lawsuit, the prince denied the charges.

Then 16,Manohara didn't tell her mother what happened. "I was in denial," shesays. "I knew if I changed my behavior, my mom would find out. I wasembarrassed."

Her mothersays she was blind to the prince's obsession. "I didn't see the signs,"she says. "I thought he was charming."

Then inAugust 2008, the prince's mother announced that her son was in love withManohara and that the couple would marry immediately. Manohara says an aide tothe royal family persuaded her to go through with the ceremony to keep thepeace. After that, she says, he told her she could return to Jakarta.

"I keptsaying 'no, no, no,' " Manohara recalled. The teen acknowledges that shemarried Fakhry, but insists that she said nothing at the ceremony and signed nopapers.

Manoharasoon returned to Jakarta to pursue her modeling career. But she says Fakhrycalled to say he felt terrible about the circumstances of the marriage andwanted to apologize.

They agreedto meet in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, for prayer and pilgrimage. Fajarina accompaniedher daughter, but when it came time to fly home, Manohara says, she wasspirited into a private jet.

"Theyleft me on the tarmac," Fajarina recalled.

"Shewas running after me," Manohara says. "I could see her from thewindow."

For the nextnine months, she alleges, she was injected with tranquilizers and threatened ifshe did not appear happy when attending functions with the prince. She claimsthe prince also cut her chest several times with a razor.

In a newsconference last June, she showed photos of the alleged razor wounds taken atthe time with a cellphone camera. The wounds are now gone, she said.

Pillaydismissed the claims. "If you are cut on the breast, the marks aresupposed to be there. Where are the scars?"

Manohara says she was able to keep hidden her BlackBerry and charger. She sent e-mails to her mother, who went to the Indonesian press about her daughter's allegations.

The tabloidpress ran with the story. "Fairy Tale of a Prince and His Bride Turns toNightmare," one headline screamed. "Manohara says she was held as sexslave by her prince," read another. A Jakarta Post headline trumpeted:"Manohara: I Was Drugged and Abused."

ManyIndonesians took to the streets, demanding Manohara's return. A protest outsidethe Malaysian Embassy in Jakarta turned violent. Malaysian government officialsbelieve that Indonesians have been stirred up by sensationalist media.

"Bothgovernments have taken a stand and said this is a personal matter betweenhusband and wife," said Eldeen Hussaini, deputy director of relationsbetween the two nations for the Malaysian Foreign Ministry.

Butbusinessman Shah says he was quietly asked to intervene in 2008 by governmentofficials on both sides.

He asked tomeet with Manohara privately, but Fakhry declined. "I told him I justwanted to ask about the allegations," he says. "If the girl said shewas happy, I was willing to let things be."

Last May,Fakhry and Manohara traveled to Singapore, where Shah was finally able to meether. At a restaurant, Manohara slipped him the note. As soon as he left therestaurant, Shah said, he called Fajarina, urging her to rush to Singapore. Shearrived just before her daughter outwitted Fakhry and his phalanx of bodyguardsand escaped, according to media reports.

The teenagerpressed the emergency alarm in a Singapore hotel elevator, summoning securityguards, who allowed Manohara to run into the waiting arms of her mother.

A spokesmanfor the U.S. Embassy in Singapore said that Manohara's mother had contactedofficials there before the escape and that they had assisted the teen but didnot offer details.

Nearly ayear later, Indonesians are still hungry for news on Manohara.

"It's auniversal fairy tale, a love story gone wrong. Young, poor girl meets prince.Prince turns into frog in her eyes," said TV news anchor Dalton Tanonaka."The truth lies somewhere in the middle, but the story remains great forgossip programs and rumor mills."

The princeis still suffering, Pillay says. "There's an element of sadness because hetruly loves Manohara," he says. "If I was in his position, I wouldn'tlove her anymore. But perhaps the prince thinks she is too young and wasbrainwashed by her mother."

For theprincess, the ratings for her soap opera remain high, and she's starting a newcosmetic line.

As for loveand marriage, Manohara plans to take a time out to heal. She needs to purge theprince from her life, she says.

"Peoplewant to know about my life," she says. "They ask, 'Who is Manoharadating?' The answer is no one. I've got lots of time for that."