T

he Jakarta High Court has granted an appeal filed by Indonesian Ferdinant Tjiong and Canadian Neil Bantleman in a sexual abuse case involving three kindergartners at the Jakarta Intercultural School (JIS), a lawyer has said.

Hotman Paris Hutapea, the lawyer representing Ferdinant and Bantleman, said Thursday that he had received information from the Jakarta High Court that it had overturned the two teachers'€™ guilty verdicts, for which they had each received a 10-year prison sentence. '€œHowever, I have not received a copy of the verdict yet. I will get one from the South Jakarta District Court tomorrow,'€ he said over the phone.

Hotman said after picking up a copy of the verdict at the district court, he and a number of JIS staffers would go to Cipinang Penitentiary in East Jakarta, where the two teachers were imprisoned, and take care of administrative matters to secure their immediate release.

On April 2, a panel of judges declared Ferdinant and Bantleman guilty of sexual abuse. The case broke in April last year, with accusations that cleaning staff had abused a pupil, which was quickly followed by claims of abuse by teachers.