‘My Manohara Is Irreplaceable,’ Mother Pleads

source : Nurfika Osman

MANOHARA ODELIA PINOT – Daisy Fajarina, the mother of a missing 17-year-old Indonesian-American model married to a Malaysian prince, says her son-in-law’s family offered her a million-dollar apartment if she would cut all contact with her daughter, Manohara Odelia Pinot.

“Even if they offer me the world, I cannot accept it, Manohara is irreplaceable,” she said, choking back tears. “I just want them to give back my daughter.”

Speaking at a packed news conference at the National Commission on Violence Against Women, the distraught woman, who later fainted, repeated claims that her daughter was kidnapped by her husband and spirited away by private jet from Saudi Arabia on Feb. 26. She claims Malaysian authorities have stopped her visiting the country to check on her daughter’s condition.

Late on Thursday, the Web site Malaysiakini.com reported that this ban had been lifted. “The order has been rescinded. We have informed the Indonesian Embassy. Our embassy in Jakarta has also informed the authorities there,” an official told the site.

The alleged kidnapping occurred after the prince’s family,  Manohara, her mother and sister went to Saudi Arabia for Islam’s minor pilgrimage, or umroh. As both families were preparing to return to Malaysia from Jeddah, Manohara’s relatives were left on the tarmac as the jet took off. The case has threatened to become a diplomatic incident.

In Indonesia, Manohara’s fate has consumed readers of tabloid newspapers, TV, Web sites and blogs, making the relatively unknown beauty a household name.

Manohara, named one of Indonesia’s 100 Precious Women by Harper’s Bazaar magazine, was 16 when she married Tengku Temenggong Muhammad Fakhry, a prince of Kelantan, on Aug. 26 last year in an Islamic ceremony at the prince’s palace.

Daisy said her daughter, then 14, met the prince at a gala dinner hosted by then Deputy Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak in Malaysia. “The prince came to me and asked my permission to be friends with Manohara,” she said.

By coincidence, Najib was in Jakarta for a state visit on Thursday and separately held a press conference with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono at almost the same time. Najib was besieged with reporters’ questions on the case and whether he knew Manohara. He declined to comment.

Daisy said that early last month a representative of the prince’s family came to Indonesia and offered her the apartment and a sum of money to break ties with her daughter. “Manohara is ours,” Daisy claimed the emissary said. Daisy and her first daughter, Dewi, formally reported the case to the National Commission on Violence Against Women on Thursday after trying to reach Manohara via official channels.

She said the prince had always been polite and lovable, so she let him marry her daughter. “I thought my feeling was right about him as he was so nice, and I do believe every mother wants the best for their children, but I was wrong,” she sobbed.

Daisy said Manohara’s biological father, an American, disagreed with the marriage. The couple are divorced and the father lives in the United States.

In her last phone conversation with Manohara, on March 21, she said her daughter was desperate. “She was crying and wanted me to bring her back to Indonesia.” {thejakartaglobe | rd)