Dhurke Sahdmadhi

"Dhurke Sahdmadhi"

- .........A dragon never yields. Even when wounded, a dragon bites down hard, and never lets go till its dying breath. It glares, it roars, and it latches its jaws firmly onto its prey till the bitter end. That's what lawyers do to get to the truth!

Dhurke Sahdmadhi was the leader of the defense attorney resistance group known as the Defiant Dragons. He was also the husband of Amara Sigatar Khura'in, the father of Nahyuta Sahdmadhi and Rayfa Padma Khura'in, and the foster father of Apollo Justice.

Forced into hiding

 * Main article: Assassination attempt of Amara Sigatar Khura'in

Dhurke was a defense attorney married to the queen of Khura'in, Amara Sigatar Khura'in, and they had a son, Nahyuta Sahdmadhi. He was one of the most renowned defense attorneys in the kingdom due to his countless victories in court. One day, however, Amara's residence was set on fire by an arsonist and Dhurke was accused of the crime, as the lighter found at the scene had his fingerprints on it. The case was prosecuted by Ga'ran Sigatar Khura'in, Amara's younger sister, who was the kingdom's Minister of Justice at the time. Dhurke defended himself in court against Ga'ran and was almost able to prove his innocence, but he was accused of forging evidence and was forced to go into hiding to escape conviction.

Amara was thought to have died in the fire, but Dhurke believed that she had survived and gone into hiding. Ga'ran succeeded her sister as queen, and the fact that the country believed Dhurke to be a terrorist damaged the public opinion of defense attorneys and eventually led Ga'ran to enact the Defense Culpability Act, which stated that a defense attorney was to receive the same punishment as their client if they were found guilty, and which soon caused the defense attorney profession to become extinct in Khura'in.

In the aftermath of the incident, Dhurke adopted Apollo Justice, the son of a man who had died in the fire, and raised him in the mountains alongside his own son Nahyuta. During this time, Dhurke formed the Defiant Dragons, a resistance group whose goal was to overthrow the Ga'ran regime so that the Defense Culpability Act could be nullified. Dhurke continued to wear his attorney's badge in the years that followed, and would often tell his sons of his dream to restore a court system where all defendants were ensured fair trials.

Rescuing Amara
Apollo returned to his native United States when he was nine years old. Soon afterwards, Dhurke found Amara in captivity. Ga'ran had convinced her sister that Dhurke was the arsonist who had tried to kill her, but when he insisted on his innocence, she chose to go with him and decide for herself whether she could trust him. The two lived together in hiding for a few months, and, on Christmas Eve, Amara gave birth to their daughter Rayfa Padma Khura'in. However, Dhurke was forced to flee again when they were discovered by the regime, and Amara was taken into seclusion again. Rayfa was adopted by Ga'ran and her husband Inga Karkhuul Khura'in, and was raised by them, not knowing about her true parentage.

In the years that followed, Nahyuta became a prosecutor, intending to help the cause of the Defiant Dragons by reforming the legal system from within. Dhurke, who had hopes of reuniting with Apollo in the future, went to great lengths to find a photograph of his biological father, Jove Justice, intending to give it to him when they met again.

The revolution begins

 * Main articles: The Foreign Turnabout and The Rite of Turnabout

The absence of defense attorneys in the kingdom was first called into question twenty-three years after the enactment of the Defense Culpability Act, when Phoenix Wright, a foreign defense attorney who was visiting Khura'in at the time, chose to defend the monk-in-training Ahlbi Ur'gaid from murder charges in spite of the risks and managed to win a not guilty verdict. Upon hearing about the outcome of the trial, Dhurke knew that the time to overthrow the regime was drawing near.

The final straw that began to rally the citizens against the current court system came during the trial of Maya Fey two weeks later, when it was revealed that the defendant was not only innocent of the charge, but that the victim, Tahrust Inmee, had taken his own life in an attempt to protect his wife Beh'leeb Inmee from murder charges, as she had killed a man in self-defense but this would be impossible to prove without a lawyer. It was also around this time that Dhurke's right-hand man, Datz Are'bal, escaped from prison. As both Are'bal and Beh'leeb had been exposed as members of the Defiant Dragons during the trial, Dhurke went to the courthouse to help them escape from Ga'ran's guards. He would later hijack a nationwide broadcast of the television show The Plumed Punisher: Warrior of Neo Twilight Realm, using the broadcast to announce to the whole kingdom his intent to dethrone Ga'ran and nullify the Defense Culpability Act.

Death

 * Main article: Turnabout Revolution

A few days later, Maya was kidnapped by Inga, who intended to use her safety as leverage to obtain the Founder's Orb, a relic he needed in order to take the throne for himself. Dhurke went to Amara's Tomb in Ga'ran Palace to rescue Fey, but was discovered by Inga, who shot him three times in the chest before fleeing. Although Fey begged for Dhurke not to die, he knew he was fatally wounded, and so he asked her to do two things for him. The first was to channel his spirit once he was dead, so he could release her from the ropes she was tied with. The second was for her to travel back to the United States and channel him there, so that he could see Apollo one last time.

A final reunion
Fey did as Dhurke had asked of her and channeled Dhurke in the United States. Once there, he visited Apollo at the law agency where he worked, and gave him the photograph of his biological father Jove. Dhurke asked for Apollo's help in obtaining the Founder's Orb, which was in the possession of Archie Buff, a resident of Kurain Village. Upon arriving at the village, they were informed by Detective Ema Skye that Buff had died in an accident the previous night; furthermore, investigation of Buff's home showed that he appeared to have taken the orb to the nearby Mt. Mitama.

After several hours of exploring the Mt. Mitama caves, Dhurke and Apollo managed to find the box with the Founder's Orb inside it, but found that they were now stuck in the cave, so Dhurke told Apollo to stay behind while he searched for a way out through the water. Dhurke managed to find the exit, but became worried that Apollo was in danger, so he asked a fisherman to take him to the cave entrance, tied a rope around himself, and returned to where Apollo was, managing to save him just as he was about to drown.

As soon as they returned to Kurain Village, however, Apollo and Dhurke were confronted by the politician Paul Atishon, who claimed that the orb they had found was actually the "Crystal of Ami Fey" and a family heirloom of his. Furthermore, they were greeted by Phoenix Wright, who claimed that he would be representing Atishon in a civil lawsuit against Dhurke, and that they would determine in court who the orb really belonged to.

Although Apollo managed to defeat Wright in court and have the ownership of the orb granted to Dhurke, they soon received a call from Inga, who turned out to be the true mastermind behind Atishon's attempt to obtain the orb. Inga informed Dhurke that, if he did not want Amara to be harmed, he was to bring the orb to Amara's Tomb at 3 p.m. the next day.

Accused of murder
Dhurke returned to Khura'in, along with Apollo, Wright, Are'bal, Athena Cykes and Miles Edgeworth, to make the promised exchange. No sooner had he entered the tomb, however, than someone exorcised his spirit from Fey's body with a Magatama of Parting. When he was channeled again, he found that he was standing over Inga's dead body with a bloodied knife in his hand, just as Ga'ran's guards broke into the tomb with Apollo and the others.

Dhurke was arrested for Inga's murder; in addition, he charged with the assassination of Amara from twenty-three years previously. When Apollo visited his adoptive father at the detention center and said he intended to defend him in court, even with the Defense Culpability Act, Dhurke confessed that, even if he were proven innocent, he did not have long to live, and that Apollo – who did not yet know of his death – would soon have to face a truth that would be difficult to accept.

During the trial the next day, while court was in recess, Dhurke left Amara's body, not wanting to put her in danger. Apollo persevered in his defense, even after learning of Dhurke's death, and proved that Inga's real killer, as well as the one behind Amara's assassination attempt, was Queen Ga'ran herself, who had sought to usurp the throne. With the queen dethroned, the Defense Culpability Act was finally nullified, finishing the work that Dhurke had started years before.

Name

 * His given name "Dhurke" may come from "Druk" (Dzongkha: འབྲུག་), the Bhutanese thunder dragon.
 * "Sahdmadhi", his surname, comes from the Japanese proverb "hotoke no kao mo sando made" (仏の顔も三度まで), which means "Even the Buddha becomes angry if you brush his face thrice".