Women’s and children’s rights activists regretted the withdrawal of the testimony a total of eight witnesses in the case of alleged sexual abuse against four Balinese children by Jan Jacobus Vogel. The 57-year-old Dutch citizen has been on trial since Jan. 8 for sexually harassing four Balinese girls between the ages of 9 and 12, residents of Enjung Sanghyang hamlet in the impoverished village of Kaliasem, Buleleng regency. During an earlier trial session this week, the four victims recanted the testimony they had made to the police, which had been recorded in affidavits.
Soon after that, four supporting witnesses, including the parents and grandmother of the victims, also recanted their testimonies. The withdrawal of their testimony is likely to bring the trial to a rapid end and set Vogel free due to the fact that only testimony made during a trial can be used as the foundation for a verdict in the Indonesian judicial system. The latest shocking withdrawal was that of the key witness, Ketut Witana, head of Enjung Sanghyang hamlet, who is also the uncle of one of the victims. Previously, in front of the police, he had testified to witnessing Vogel touching the girls’ breasts.
“We are very concerned about these withdrawals. The families of the victims have actually influenced their children to revoke the testimonies. The families prefer to defend the defendant because in the past, he was very generous to the villagers, donating lamps, books and rice to them,” Bali chapter LBH Apik secretary Luh Putu Anggraeni told Bali Daily on Thursday. LBH Apik Bali, along with other NGOs for women’s and children’s rights, including Lentera Anak Bali, Yayasan Sahabat Anak Bali, Bali Legal Aid Institute (YLBHI Bali) and the P2TP2A of Bali (Integrated Service Center for Women and Children’s Empowerment), are part of the Network of Care for Child Victims of Pedophilia (JPAKP) that is jointly overseeing the process of the trial.
“It is very difficult to sentence these offenders due to their ‘generosity’ to the villagers,” said Anggraeni. It had been reported earlier that both local and foreign pedophiles had been visiting the region disguising themselves as a generous tourists giving huge donations to the underprivileged villagers to cover up their sexual abuse of the villagers’ children. The island’s Buleleng regency has reportedly become a pedophilia haven in the past decade, as seen from the regency having the largest number of pedophilia cases, including the 2005 arrest of a man from the Netherlands by the name of Max Le Clerco, the 2004 13-year sentence for Tony William Stuart Brown from Australia, and the 2001 case of Mario Manara from Italy, who was sentenced to a mere nine months in jail.
A number of other foreigners, including Michele Rene Heller and Martial Juegler, both French nationals, and Philip Grandfield from Australia, are currently imprisoned in Singaraja Penitentiary for the sexual abuse of young children. Numerous others have also been taken to court for involvement in pedophilia cases. Other popular tourism destinations in Bali, including Sanur, Kuta and Karangasem, have also seen cases of pedophilia. After the Thursday hearing, Vogel’s attorney, Geoffrey Nanulaitta, expressed his confidence that his client was innocent. “The testimony withdrawals have proven that my client is innocent. Those children were forced [to testify],” he said. Vogel will face his next trial session on Jan. 22, when the police investigators will be summoned as witnesses.
source : bali daily
source : bali daily
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