I don't normally write about private matters, especially when the whole facts are unknown. But the Manohara stories have evoked so much ill feelings towards YTM Tengku Temenggong Muhammad Fakhry that I feel I have to state my 2 sen's worth about the matter.

I wish to start by saying that I do not know the facts of this matter. All that I have are information which I got from the various reports on the Internet. And I do not have the means to verify those information. Being so, I am afraid that this post is going to be speculative, at best.

The latest take on this episode is titled "The Manohara Escape and Unsung Heroes" appearing on Malaysia Today. The story appearing in that article is however inconsistent with earlier reports which I had read a day earlier. Chief among which is the story about how Manohara pressed the emergency button of the elevator at 3 am, which was reported a day earlier.

In the aforesaid story however, the chronology of events are as follows:

Arriving at the hotel at around 8.30pm, they (manaohara's mother and her sister) entered the hotel lobby,
The police arrived less than 10 minutes after they arrived, and,
“Then I (Manohara's sister) heard the emergency alarm from the elevator. A woman and a man then came running from the lobby area towards the elevator carrying what looked like a doctor's bag. They (the security guards) told them to go to the third floor.

“We tried to follow them up, but they stopped us.”

Soon after, her mum and the police also went up to the third floor while Asih stayed behind in the lobby.

So, in this story, it was not 3 am but it was about 8.40pm that the emergency alarm was sounded. That's the first inconsistency.

The earlier reports suggested that Manohara knew that her mother was at the hotel at the time she pressed the emergency alarm. That must be one hell of a coincidence! How did she manage to know that her mother was in the hotel if she was so closely guarded all the time? And quite how did she manage to get out of her room at 3am and got into the elevator if she was so guarded all the time? How did she escape the watchful eyes of all the body guards?

In the earlier reports too, it was Manohara who called the police. In the aforesaid report, it was the mother and her sister, on the advice of the taxi driver, who called the police. Which is which?

In this latest report, apparently the mother and her sister, while sitting at the lobby, were approached by another Indonesian lady who happened to live at the same hotel and on the exact same floor where Manohara was staying, namely, the 3rd floor of the hotel. Wow. That was quite a coincidence, I must say.

As the story goes:

"Said Asih: “A lady, who turned out to be an Indonesian guest staying at the hotel, came up to us while we were waiting near the elevator.

“She asked my mum if she was Manohara's mum. My mum said yes, and she told us that she saw Manohara on the third floor, but the people upstairs were not letting her come down."

That was quite a coincidence. And as if this was one big movie, precisely at that time, while the mother and her sister were talking to this Indonesian lady, the emergency alarm went off from the elevator. Then:

“Then I heard the emergency alarm from the elevator. A woman and a man then came running from the lobby area towards the elevator carrying what looked like a doctor's bag. They (the security guards) told them to go to the third floor."

Who were these woman and man? Where did they come from? Why were they carrying a medical case? This suggested that these woman and man knew before hand that there was going to be an emergency. How could that be the case?

The icing on the cake is this.

Soon after, her mum and the police also went up to the third floor while Asih stayed behind in the lobby.

Said Fajarina: “When I got up to the third floor, I saw Manohara inside the lift, sitting on the floor crying, pressing the alarm button. She refused to get out.

“When she saw me, she started screaming for me and said, 'Mother, never let me go again'.”

Asih said that she later met her sister and her mother in a hotel room on the third floor belonging to the Indonesian lady who had earlier tipped them off about seeing Pinot on that floor. She had allowed them to use her room.

Asih said that Pinot later contacted American embassy officials who turned up with officials from the Indonesian embassy.

Fajarina said that they stayed in the room from 9pm to 4am and negotiated with the prince, who did not want to let her daughter go."

This is the most unbelievable part of the story. It does not make any sense at all. Here are 3 people who are supposed to be scared stiff of the Tengku Temenggong. Human instinct would make them run away from the scene as soon as possible. But instead, they stayed in a room on the same floor till 4am!

Why would they negotiate with the Prince? If she was abused, wouldn't she run away immediately. Negotiate? What was there to negotiate? Negotiate to run away?

Then:

"She (the mother) added that the prince relented only after his lawyer advised him that he could be in trouble with the law if he refused.

The family then made their way back to Jakarta on an early morning flight on Sunday."

What trouble with the law? What Singaporean law had the Prince breached or broken? What criminal offence had the Prince committed in Singapore? Being with his legal wife is an offence?

Truthfully, I find the stories incredible.

I think we should give the benefit of the doubt to the Prince. First of all, it is a private matter. Apparently Manohara is now considering legal actions. If so, the truth would soon come out.

But before then, in my book, the Prince is innocent until proven guilty.