Indah Setiawati, Jakarta – Anwar Rosadi, the father of a 12 year old, who had worked as a maid for Renata Tan, looked worried. His daughter was being questioned by policewomen at West Jakarta police station. She had seen another maid allegedly tortured to death by her employer.

He had every reason to be concerned. She told the police and her father she had often been subjected to similar treatment.

Nevertheless, Anwar, a farmer and part-time construction worker from Purwokerto in Central Java, said he would not sue the woman who had tortured his daughter, Anisa Dwi Jayanti.

"I think I will not sue her because it would take time and money. I cannot afford to repeatedly go back and forth from my home town to Jakarta to accompany my daughter," Anwar told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

His eyes looked empty when he said he did not know that Anisa was often beaten by her employer during her eight-month stay as a maid in Renata's house in West Jakarta. "Every time I called my daughter she always said she was fine and she enjoyed her work," he said.

Anwar later found out that Renata always waited next to Anisa when she took phone calls, carrying a rattan stick. "She said her two fellow maids had become her employer's new targets for her anger in the past weeks," he said, adding that he would bring her home today, if police permitted it.

Anisa gave testimony to police over the death of Septiana Maulina, 16, Renata's third suspected murder victim, who was allegedly abused to death. She also stood as witness for another housemaid, Satini, who suffered burns from boiling water at the hands of Renata.

Head of the Women's and Children Service at West Jakarta precinct Adj. Comr. Sri Rahayu Lestari, said Renata was formerly known as Maria Ursula Tangguh and was previously found guilty of torturing two housemaids to death in 1992 and 1996.

Renata was freed after being pronounced insane by doctors in the first case. In 1998, she escaped another prison sentence because she was diagnosed as mentally ill and was sent to Jakarta Pyschiatric Hospital in Grogol, West Jakarta for one year for treatment.

"Her identity card now shows her name as Renata and we are using that name now. We discovered that she was also Maria after senior detectives here recognized her face," she said. West Jakarta Police chief Sr. Comr. Iza Fadri said he did not know when Renata changed her name or why.

A crime expert at the University of Indonesia, Adrianus Meilala, said that judges in the previous trials had already forbidden the family from ever again employing domestic workers.

"Both husband and wife clearly violated the law. Unfortunately, our police and courts do not have clear procedures under which we can charge them for violating this rule," he said.