Scavenger tried for raping children
JAKARTA (JP): A 61-year-old scavenger was charged in the East Jakarta District Court yesterday for raping 12 boys, all street children aged between 11 and 16 years.
The suspect, a resident of Pondok Gede, Bekasi, committed the alleged crimes between January 1994 and July 1996, prosecutor Azwar told the closed hearing.
According to a copy of his dossier, which was shown to reporters, the suspect was charged under Article 289 of the Criminal Code, pertaining to obscene acts with force. If found guilty, the suspect faces a maximum penalty of nine years imprisonment.
The prosecutor also charged him with Article 292, which states that anyone caught sexually abusing an under-aged person of the same sex will face a maximum sentence of five years in jail.
The suspect was arrested in August during the height of a police investigation into a serial killer who killed and mutilated 12 street children.
Their bodies were found in the Kemayoran area of Central Jakarta.
The suspect's arrest came after some of the boys, who were victims of rape, reported him to the police. His interrogation quickly led to the arrest of the murder suspect, also a scavenger.
According to the prosecutor's dossier, the pedophile suspect preyed on his victims in the Jatinegara subdistrict in East Jakarta where street children live in a department store parking lot and at the local train station.
Some of his victims were also orphans, the prosecutor said.
The dossier contained the medical reports on the children conducted by Dr. Abdul Mun`im Idries at the Forensic Laboratory of the School of Medicine at the University of Indonesia. The report said the children had been sexually abused.
The 12 children, who were allegedly abused, were in court yesterday but their testimonies will have to wait because the trial was adjourned until next Thursday.
The children were accompanied by officials from the Jakarta Social Institute, a non-governmental organization which gives help and protection to street children. (16)