Ida Cokorda Pemecutan XI, the late king of Denpasar and great-uncle of Australian socialite Lindy Klim (née Rama), was convicted in 2013 of assault causing the death of his stepbrother after a 2003 family dispute in which the older man stabbed the relative with a sword, court documents show.
Records made public by the Supreme Court of the Republic of Indonesia and contemporaneous local reports show the attack occurred on Nov. 11, 2003, amid an escalating argument over construction and land at the Pemecutan palace grounds. The victim, identified in news reports as Anak Agung Ngurah Putu Paranacita, was stabbed with a 74-centimetre sword and died en route to hospital. Police arrested Cokorda Pemecutan at the scene, and the matter later proceeded through Indonesia’s courts.
Cokorda Pemecutan, who died of heart failure on Dec. 22, 2021, at age 76, was not finally sentenced until Nov. 27, 2013. He was found guilty of assault causing the death of a person and given a three-year prison term. Indonesian authorities credited him for time already served in custody: he spent roughly three months in a detention centre after the incident, was released into house arrest until early 2005, was taken to prison in 2014, and was released on May 11, 2015, after serving about one year in Kerobokan Penitentiary.
Local news coverage at the time and people familiar with Balinese royal circles have long recounted the episode, though the details have received limited attention in Australian media. Lindy Klim has publicly embraced her connection to Balinese royalty since returning to Australia after living in Bali for years, and her familial link to the late king has been cited in profiles and social reporting. Sources in Bali told national outlets that the killing and Cokorda Pemecutan’s subsequent detention were widely known on the island.
Court documents and contemporaneous reporting describe a long-running dispute within the Pemecutan family over attempts by the king to erect a boundary wall at palace grounds. Several family members, who said the grounds belonged collectively to the royal family, tore down the wall in protest. A family meeting intended to resolve the dispute became heated. According to records, a physical altercation broke out involving Cokorda Pemecutan’s son, and the elder king intervened after his son was assaulted. The court files say the victim had at one point stepped on the elder man’s head in a fish pond and that the clash appeared to subside before the king retrieved the sword and stabbed his stepbrother.
Prosecutors initially brought the case soon after the 2003 incident, but complexities in the legal process resulted in a protracted timeline to final conviction. At sentencing, Cokorda Pemecutan was ordered to pay modest court costs as well as the prison term. Kerobokan Penitentiary, where he served part of his sentence, has hosted several high-profile inmates in past decades and is widely known in Indonesia.
At the time of his death in 2021, Cokorda Pemecutan was described in reports as a spiritual leader and an advocate of religious tolerance in Denpasar. His cremation in early January 2022 followed traditional Balinese rites and lasted several days, a custom for prominent members of the island’s royal families.
Klim, 45, was raised in Australia after her parents’ divorce and moved with her mother to Tasmania at age three. She has said she had little contact with her father while growing up. She later lived in Bali for about 15 years, moving there with her then-husband Michael Klim in the mid-2000s. Klim returned to Australia earlier this year following a split from her more recent partner and announced she and her eldest daughter will appear on the upcoming season of The Amazing Race Australia.
The revelation of her great-uncle’s criminal history has prompted renewed public interest in the complexities of Bali’s royal families, where customary authority and property disputes occasionally intersect with modern legal systems. Indonesian court records remain the principal source for the timeline of the 2003 attack, the later conviction and sentencing, and Cokorda Pemecutan’s time in custody.
Family members and climate of privacy around local royal houses mean some details about internal disputes are preserved within local reporting and oral history rather than widely reported overseas. Media outlets on the island covered the 2003 attack and the subsequent legal process; Australian coverage of Klim’s heritage has tended to focus on her lifestyle and public profile rather than the legal history of extended relatives.
As Klim prepares to re-enter Australian television, the court records and past reporting serve as the public record of a decades-old episode that remains part of the broader story of Bali’s royal families and their place in contemporary life on the island.