Trial for the murder of Matilde Muñoz in Indonesia: the robbery was retaliation

PalmIndonesian prosecutors on Wednesday accused the two suspects in the murder of María Matilde Muñoz Cazorla, the 72-year-old Spanish woman found dead on the island of Lombok, of planning a robbery and the subsequent murder as revenge due to an alleged misunderstanding with the tourist.

A district court in the city of Mataram held the first session of the trial for the murder of Muñoz this Wednesday. The hearing was presided over by Judge Kelik Trimargo and was attended by the two defendants, Suhaeli and Heri Ridwan, who sat in the dock with court-appointed lawyers.

During the hearing, in which no witnesses appeared and the defendants did not testify, the Indonesian Public Prosecutor's Office—represented by prosecutor Danny Curia Novitawan—explained that Ridwan's initial plan consisted solely of stealing valuables from the room where the victim was staying at the Bumi Hotel.

According to the prosecutors' account, Ridwan, an employee of the hotel, allegedly planned the robbery as retaliation for a supposed misunderstanding with his wife. The victim died after being asphyxiated and beaten. The prosecution accuses both men of premeditated murder and robbery with violence.

The body of the woman, born in Galicia and a resident of Mallorca for many years, was found in August buried on a beach in an area near where she had been last seen. The last time she was seen was in the vicinity of the Bumi Aditya hotel, on Senggigi beach, where she had prepaid for a 20-night stay, as explained to Europa Press by her nephew and family representative, Ignacio Vilariño.

West Lombok police did not begin investigating her disappearance until August 13, after the Spanish Embassy in the country requested assistance in writing. Previously, the family had described the case as a "textbook crime" and urged both Indonesian police and Interpol to intensify the search. Most of the victim's belongings—clothing, books, sandals, personal notes, and her backpack—were found in the hotel's manure area. However, her passport, credit cards, and mobile phone were missing, reinforcing the hypothesis of a violent robbery or a deliberate attempt to destroy evidence.