Maia & Ahmad Dhani
Pop star couple Ahmad Dhani, of Dewa 19, and Maia, formerly of the band Ratu, have taken their well-publicised marital problems to the police.
Maia, or Mia, born Maya Estianty, was the first to head to the police station on April 23rd, just after she had gotten back from the Haj to Mecca, with claims of husbandly psychological abuse as her marriage with the Dewa 19 singer fell apart [1].
Maia of Ratu, right, with Mulan, left, not looking their best.
Dhani Ahmad Prasetyo is not going to be far behind it appears [2], and his lawyers Samsul Huda and Umar Husin explained on 27th April that Dhani had a CCTV recording of his estranged wife going into a hotel with a rich, well-connected owner of a “conglemerate”, a man who was already married, with one daughter to show for it. Dhani also had a recording of a telephone conversation with his wife, in which she is said to have admitted her guilt. This recording had been put into VCD format by Dhani, possibly with an accompanying sound track, and was going to be handed over to the police along with the video.
Dhani, with his guru.
Adultery is a crime in Indonesia, although generally the police do not go looking for cases of it, except in hotels, but they often don’t go looking for cases of anything.
The lawyers said that not only had Maia cuckolded her husband but she was very disrespectful towards him and his family. She treated her mother-in-law with disdain and accused her father-in-law of being a womaniser.
Ahmad Dhani also appears to believe that his troubles are an affair of state. He plans to send a letter outlining his marital problems to the wife of president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Mrs Ani, as well as former president Gus Dur’s wife, Shinta Nuriyah Wahid, and the current minister for Womens’ Empowerment, Meuthia Hatta. He hopes the letter will give the three important women a fuller view of what is going on in his household, whether they are interested or not.
The couple have three children, all named in mystical Sufi Islam style, Ahmad Al Gazali, El Jalaluddin Rumi, and Abdul Qodir Jaelani, but it is not clear whether any of these children are going to report their parents to the police.
