An Indonesian high court granted an appeal from prosecutors and sentenced the principal of an Islamic boarding school to death for raping at least 13 students over five years and impregnating some of them.
Herry Wirawan had been convicted by a three-judge panel at Bandung District Court in February and sentenced to life in prison.
He had been accused of raping girls between the ages of 11 and 14 from 2016 to last year at the school, hotels or rented apartments in the West Java. At least nine babies were reportedly born as a result of the rapes.
His case drew a public outcry as there were a numerous victims over several years.
Police said that the victims were too fearful to tell anyone.
The Bandung High Court judges in their ruling on Monday agreed with prosecutors’ appeal for the death penalty and for Wirawan’s assets to be seized.
“What he had done had caused trauma and suffering to the victims and their parents,” said the ruling the court released on its Web site yesterday. “The defendant had tarnished the reputation of Islamic boarding schools.”
The lower court had ordered Indonesia’s child protection ministry to pay US$23,200 in combined compensation requested by the victims and between US$600 and US$6,000 for medical and psychological treatment for each girl, instead of seizing Wirawan’s assets.
However, the high court ruled for his assets to be seized, including a foundation he owned, and auctioned to benefit the victims and their children.
The judges also ruled that nine children born to the victims should be handed over to the Children and Women Protection Agency with periodic evaluation “until the victims are mentally ready to care for their children, and the situation allows for their children to be returned to the victims.”
The appeal court’s judges denied prosecutors’ request for chemical castration, saying that someone sentenced to death or life imprisonment cannot be subject to other punishments, other than the revocation of some rights.
Wirawan’s lawyer, Ira Mambo, said that she would advise her client to appeal the sentence at the Supreme Court.
They have seven days to do so before the court decision becomes final.
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