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Jakarta Post

Four more JIS janitors stand trial

The first trial hearing of four outsourced cleaners employed by PT Integrated Service Solutions (ISS) who are accused of sexually assaulting a kindergarten student at the Jakarta International School (JIS) commenced at the South Jakarta District Court on Wednesday

The Jakarta Post
Jakarta
Thu, August 28, 2014

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Four more JIS janitors stand trial

T

he first trial hearing of four outsourced cleaners employed by PT Integrated Service Solutions (ISS) who are accused of sexually assaulting a kindergarten student at the Jakarta International School (JIS) commenced at the South Jakarta District Court on Wednesday.

The panel of judges ordered a closed-door trial because of the victim'€™s age, as stipulated by the 2012 juvenile court law. The four suspects '€” Virgiawan Amin, Zainal Abidin, Syahrial and Afrischa Setyani '€” were tried in pairs and the panel of judges was different for each suspect.

'€œWe are charging the defendants under Article 82 of the 2002 child protection law in conjunction with Articles 55 and 64 of the Criminal Codes,'€ chief prosecutor Rahimah said after the first hearing.

The law threatens a maximum 15-year prison sentence.

The case first came to light when the mother of the victim filed a police report on April 14. The case was uncovered after the victim'€™s mother found bruises on her son'€™s stomach and rectum on March 20.

The four were among six PT ISS employees arrested and held as suspects in the case. Agun Iskandar went on trial on Tuesday (not on Monday as it was reported on this page on Tuesday), while another one, identified as Aswar, died in police custody in April.

The four defendants are accused of having sexually abused the victim twice, in January and February respectively, in a rest room in the school compound. According to the dossiers on them prepared by the police, the defendants took turns abusing the child and worked systematically and cooperatively to carry out and cover up their wrongdoing.

However, the indictment was found inconsistent with the Jakarta Police'€™s most recent statement that the defendants had committed sexual assaults against the victim on five occasions between February and March.

All five suspects have dossiers with similar content and indictments, although they played different alleged roles in the case.

According to Virgiawan'€™s lawyer, Patra M. Zen, his client denied the charges laid against him by the prosecutor because he had made his confession under police coercion. He said his client would have been subject to physical torture by investigators if he had not made a confession.

Like Agun, Patra said, Virgiawan has submitted a request to recant his recorded confession and would present his legal defense next Wednesday.

Separately, the victim'€™s lawyer, Andi Asrun, refuted the defendants'€™ claims and said that they were fabricating stories of being tortured by investigators.

'€œIf it were true, why didn'€™t they complain about the torture from the beginning? We hope that the judges will give the maximum sentence because you can see from their faces that they do not regret their actions at all,'€ he told the Post.

Andi added that his client was still traumatized by the sexual attacks and refused to wear pants. He is currently being home-schooled, Andi said.

Beside the five defendants, the same court was to try two JIS teaching staffers, Canadian Neil Bantleman and Indonesian Ferdinant Tjiong, who were allegedly involved in launching sexual attacks on three other kindergarten students.

Police said recently that the two suspects and their dossiers have been handed over to the Jakarta attorney'€™s office to be brought to the court. (fss)

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