Guatemala national gets 7 years for molestation, plans appeal

Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Cibinong District Court found a Guatemalan citizen guilty of molestation on Tuesday and sentenced him to seven years in prison.

Presiding judge Eka Hadi Prijanta said that the court had found that Alberto Mendizabal was guilty of molesting three Indonesian women during job interviews in June at his house in Depok.

The judge said the court had found sufficient evidence that the defendant had violated Articles 289 and 290 of Criminal Code on molestation.

The verdict is in accordance with the prosecutors' sentence proposal.

Mendizabal's lawyer Bedi S. Pribadi said that his client would appeal the verdict as they believed the judges had disregarded several pieces of evidence that would have favored his client.

"We will appeal, because we noticed many flaws in the ruling. For instance, the victims have clearly stated during the trial that there was no sexual intercourse. However, the judges used medical reports on sexual intercourse to support the verdict," he told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

His client was immediately detained after the verdict.

Mendizabal was hired by a medicine distribution company owned by his brother-in-law to recruit young women to work as sales girls to market products.

The three women interviewed at his house, which was also his office, reported him to police for molestation.

The women told the police that they were asked one by one to go into a room, where they were told to take off their clothes.

They said Mendizabal then touched their private parts and told them to come back the next day.

On the second meeting, they said they were drugged and molested once again by Mendizabal.

Bedi said that his client, who could not read Indonesian was forced to sign the case file by police without full knowledge of what was written on it.

"The investigation process has ignored my client's rights. For instance, he was not accompanied by a lawyer or an independent interpreter during the questioning. So, the case file has many flaws and should not have been used in court," he said.

Bedi said that he would report the case to the Judicial Commission, the National Human Rights Commission and to Ombudsman Commission. He has accused the judges, prosecutors and the police of abusing his client's basic rights to justice.