Bali cop murder: Connor’s lawyers make application for Australian women to testify
BYRON Bay woman Sara Connor has told a court of the Bali ‘nightmare’ she is caught in and how she desperately misses her two little boys at home in Australia.
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BYRON Bay woman Sara Connor has told of the Bali “nightmare” she is caught in and of how she desperately misses her two little boys at home in Australia.
Speaking at the conclusion of her murder trial yesterday the 46-year-old mum made some short comments outside court about the desperation of her current situation.
“It is a nightmare,” she said emotionally and “I am innocent.”
“I (would) love to go back to my kids and to Australia,” she said of her hopes for the trial.
“I miss them, I have never been so far away from them. I think about them all the time. It is very tough. They are surrounded by all our family and friends and they are looked after but I am sure they need their mother. We were very close. It is a nightmare,” Connor said of her two boys, aged nine and 11, who are being cared for in Australia by their father.
And she repeated that she was not involved in the fight which lead to the death of Bali police officer Wayan Sudarsa in the early hours of August 17 on a Kuta beach.
“I am innocent. I was not involved in anything. I just separate them and that was it.”
Connor denied even touching the officer.
“I deny to have touched him. I have never hit this guy, I was there to separate them and I got attacked, got scared and left him there.”
And asked if she believed that her boyfriend and co-accused, Brit David Taylor, had killed the police officer, Connor told of her disbelief at the whole thing.
“I do not know. I still can’t believe it. He is not that kind of guy, he is not an aggressive person. I don’t believe it.”
Connor passionately denied claims that her clothes were full of blood on the night a police officer was killed on a Kuta beach.
“I want to comment, no it is not correct, no”, the 46-year-old said passionately, shaking her head, when judges asked her about the evidence given by a motorbike taxi driver.
The first prosecution witnesses against Connor, who is jointly charged with murdering Bali police officer Wayan Sudarsa, were called during her trail in the Denpasar District Court yesterday.
Gede Suartama testified that he was scared of blood and had refused to take Connor when she had asked him to take her to the police station to report her bag stolen.
“I was not full of blood, I was full of sand,” Connor said emotionally.
She told the judge the reason he had refused to take her was because she had no money.
“I jumped on the motorbike taxi and told him, take me to the police station, he asked me for money and that’s why I told him my bag was stolen,” she said.
“So he asked me for money and I said to him then my bag was stolen, I didn’t have any money and for that reason he didn’t take me to the police station, because I didn’t have any money,” Connor told the court forcefully.
Throughout much of Mr Suartama’s evidence Connor shook her head.
The judges asked if his evidence was more correct or more incorrect and Connor replied: “Not correct”.
It was the first time Connor has been able to comment and refute the evidence against her.
In Indonesian courts, after each witness testifies the accused is able to comment.
Mr Suartama was pressed at length about his evidence that he saw blood on Connor’s shirt that evening and he denied suggestions that it could have been sauce not blood.
“She had blood on her and I don’t like blood. I just didn’t like to see that blood,” he told the court.
“There was a little bit but even have a little bit it was still scary.”
Was it blood or it looked like blood, he was asked. “It was blood.”
Another ojek driver, who rode past the scene was the next witness.
Samuel Yohanes Unwakoly said he had rode past, with a foreign passenger on board, and saw the fight.
Asked why he didn’t stop to intervene, Mr Unwakoly said the victim was much bigger than the perpetrator and so he assumed he could handle the fight.
He also had a passenger on board at that time.
He said he was sure that Connor was also present at the time.
Five witnesses were slated to testify at Connor’s trial yesterday.
It comes as her lawyer Erwin Siregar said he intends to make an application to have the evidence of two Sydney women, who were on holiday in Bali at the time and heard the fight leading up to the police officer’s death, heard via teleconference.
Mr Siregar will fly to Sydney today to meet the women.
He said that he will make an application to have their evidence heard via teleconference — something which is not normally done.
“I will request to the judge, if there is the possibility to make the teleconference if the two witnesses cannot come (to Bali),” Mr Siregar told News Corporation.
Mr Siregar said he is going to Sydney to meet the women and to hear their potential evidence directly.
Connor’s brother David, from Italy, and his wife were in Bali yesterday to support her at court.
Connor was among 95 prisoners brought from Kerobokan Jail for court hearings
AUSSIE WOMEN TO TESTIFY IN MURDER TRIAL
Lawyers for Byron Bay woman Sara Connor will tomorrow make an application for two Sydney women to testify at her Bali murder trial via teleconference.
The 46-year-old’s murder trial returns to Denpasar District Court today where, for the first time, prosecutors will call witnesses against her.
As recently revealed by News Corporation, sisters Coleen Bowen and Kim Watson, were staying in the Pullman Hotel, across the road from the Kuta beach where Bali police officer Wayan Sudarsa was killed in August.
The two women did not see the incident but, from their hotel rooms, heard the fight and when they returned to Australia from their holiday called the Australian Federal Police to report what they heard.
Connor’s lawyers have since spoken to them and taken statements and are now endeavouring to have them called as witnesses.
Mr Siregar will fly tonight to Sydney to meet the women tomorrow.
He said that when Connor’s trial resumes today he will make an application to have their evidence heard via teleconference — something which is not normally done.
“I will request to the Judge, if there is the possibility to make the teleconference if the two witnesses cannot come (to Bali),” Mr Siregar told News Corporation.
Mr Siregar said he is going to Sydney to meet the women and to hear their potential evidence directly.
Connor’s brother David, from Italy, and his wife are in Bali today to support her at court.
Connor is among 95 prisoners brought from Kerobokan Jail today for court hearings.
Witnesses expected to testify against her include the chief police investigator, Pullman Hotel security who were on duty adjacent to the beach on the night of the officer’s death and local security who discovered the body of Wayan Sudarsa.
The 30-year police veteran was found on the Kuta beach in the early hours of August 17 this year, suffering 17 head wounds and 42 wounds to his body altogether.
Connor and her British boyfriend, David Taylor, are jointly charged with murdering, assaulting and violence to the officer. The couple are being tried separately.
Connor maintains her innocence, saying that her only role on the night of the killing was trying to separate her boyfriend and the officer who were fighting after accusations the officer had stolen her handbag.
On several occasions already Connor has told the Judges, “I am innocent”, but today will be the first time that witnesses will testify against her.
The first few weeks of her trial have been taken up with legal challenges against the charges.
Her lawyers argue she should not be charged with murder but only with
concealing evidence of a crime.
But last week Judges rejected her challenge and ordered the trial to proceed.
Originally published as Bali cop murder: Connor’s lawyers make application for Australian women to testify
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