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ormer PT ISS Indonesia janitors are filing an appeal against the South Jakarta District Court'€™s verdict that sentenced them to between seven and eight years'€™ imprisonment for their involvement in a sexual abuse case at the Jakarta Intercultural School (JIS).

Lawyer Patra M. Zen said Tuesday that he would represent Zainal Abidin, Syahrial and Agun Iskandar in a higher court because there were a lot of indications that they were falsely convicted by the district court.

In December a panel of judges sentenced Zainal, Syahrial, Agun and Virgiawan Amin to eight years'€™ imprisonment, while Afrischa Setyani, the only woman among the five convicts, got seven years, for collectively and continuously sexually abusing a minor.

'€œAfrischa will also file an appeal through her lawyer, however I don'€™t know if Virgiawan will follow suit,'€ Patra told The Jakarta Post at the district court.

According to Patra, the court'€™s judges did not consider a number of pieces of evidence in making their ruling, and he emphasized that the convicts were found guilty based on retracted confessions that they said were made under duress.

During the case investigation, the police also claimed that one suspect, Azwar, committed suicide using cleaning liquid when he was in police custody, while the other four male cleaners testified repeatedly during the trial that they had seen Azwar being beaten severely.

'€œI will file the appeal documents next week. I hope that the higher court will correct the lower court'€™s verdict and acquit the convicts,'€ Patra continued.

Meanwhile, in a related case, a child abuse trial implicating two JIS teachers continued Tuesday at the South Jakarta District Court with two psychologists submitted by state prosecutors taking the witness stand as experts.

The two teaching staff, Canadian Neil Bantleman and Indonesian Ferdinant Tjiong, are on trial for allegedly sexually abusing three kindergarten students at the school. The prosecutor charged them under Article 82 of the Child Protection Law, which carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.

Mahareksha Singh Dillon, lawyer of the defendants, said that child expert Setyani Ambarwati told a panel of the judges at the trial that children would not be able to lie when asked about such allegations.

'€œOddly, she then changed her statement and said children have the capacity to say anything if they are under pressure,'€ Mahareksha told the Post.

The lawyer also pointed out that Setyani'€™s statement during the trial had to be ruled out by the panel of the judges as she had provided counseling sessions to one of the alleged victims and therefore had a conflict of interest in relation to the trial.

'€œThe witness did not have competency and she is not independent; we demanded that the judges set aside her expert testimony,'€ Mahareksha said.

Another lawyer for the teachers, Henock Siahaan, said clinical psychologist Connie Kristianto confirmed that the victims experienced psychological trauma but she said she did not look into the cause.

'€œPsychologist Connie said she could not confirm if the alleged victims experienced sexual abuse as indicted by the prosecutors,'€ he said.