False pregnancy: The above images were used in a World News Daily Report story claiming that a zookeeper at the Surabaya Zoo impregnated an orangutan named Marilyn
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A report claiming that an employee of the Surabaya Zoo sexually assaulted an orangutan, resulting in the alleged victim's pregnancy, is a hoax, the zoo's chief has confirmed.
Zoo chief Heri Purwanto debunked the report by the World News Daily Network on Saturday, saying that the zoo was not housing an orangutan named Marilyn and that the named officials were not employees of the zoo.
"Everything in the news report is false. We don't have an orangutan named Marilyn or a director named Abdoel Hakim," Heri said, as quoted by tribunnews.com on Saturday.
Heri said that the zoo currently had two directors, acting executive director Aschta Mita Tajudin and financial and human resources development director Fuad Hasan.
He added that the zoo's human resources department had compared its data with that of the report after the news circulated.
"I can ensure that this is only an individual's attempt to defame the zoo," he asserted.
The news report claimed that a 38-year-old Surabaya zookeeper was caught and convicted of committing sexual assault against animals and impregnated an orangutan. The report also said that the events had been recorded on CCTV.
A disclaimer on the World News Daily Report website states, "All characters appearing in the articles in this website ' even those based on real people ' are entirely fictional and any resemblance between them and any persons, living, dead, or undead is purely a miracle." (afr/ags)
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