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JIS confirms US child molester former teacher
Jakarta International School (JIS) has confirmed that a suspected child molester who was under the investigation of the United Statesâ Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was a former teacher at the school
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Jakarta International School (JIS) has confirmed that a suspected child molester who was under the investigation of the United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was a former teacher at the school.
According to a statement, the school's officials obtained information about the FBI's investigation from an international school in Caracas, Venezuela.
'Upon receiving the information, we immediately contacted the FBI for verification. We confirm that the suspect was a former employee of Jakarta International School who quit in 2002,' the school management said in the statement.
JIS promised to fully cooperate with the FBI while focusing on the current situation, including the closure of its early childhood education program.
The FBI posted an appeal for the public's help on its official website on Tuesday (Wednesday in Jakarta), asking for help in identifying at least 90 potential victims of molestation. The suspect, William James Vahey, 64, taught at private international schools overseas in nine countries since 1972, including in Indonesia.
According to the FBI, Vahey was employed as a social studies teacher for middle school and high school students at JIS from 1992 to 2002. The FBI also recorded that in 1969, Vahey was arrested in California on six counts of child molestation. He pled guilty to one of the charges.
The Associated Press (AP) reported that Vahey killed himself in Luverne, Minnesota, on March 21, or two days after FBI agents in Houston presented him with a warrant to search his computer flash drive. The suspect was a US citizen with residences in London and on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.
Previously, an employee of the American Nicaraguan School in Managua, where Vahey had recently taught ninth-grade world history and geography, gave the flash drive to the US Embassy there. The FBI said the storage device contained pornographic images of at least 90 boys, aged 12 to 14, who appeared to be drugged and unconscious.
The agency's spokeswoman in Houston, special agent Shauna Dunlap, told AP that investigators suspected that all of the boys in the images were students of Vahey's, going back to 2008, and that he had molested all of them.
The photos were catalogued with dates and locations that corresponded with overnight field trips that Vahey had taken with students since 2008, but he had led students on such trips for his entire career, the FBI said.
'I'm concerned that he may have preyed on many other students prior to 2008,' special agent Patrick Fransen of Houston said in the statement.
Online media reported that Vahey was reported to have said he himself was molested as a boy, according to a statement made at the federal courthouse in Houston.
Meanwhile, Jakarta Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Rikwanto said the police had not contacted the FBI regarding Vahey's case, but they were willing to help in the investigation.
The revelation follows on the heels of reports of the alleged rape of a 6-year-old kindergarten boy at JIS in March.
On Tuesday, the Indonesian Child Protection Commission (KPAI) revealed that it had received another sexual abuse report from another kindergarten boy who was the first alleged victim's classmate.
KPAI secretary-general Erlinda said the second boy said he was repeatedly molested in the bathroom and classroom.
'This is another perpetrator. That is why we will request pictures of other cleaning service workers. The victim only remembered that the perpetrator wore a blue uniform,' she said as quoted by kompas.com on Wednesday. (ask)
