{"id":44639,"date":"2015-03-13T03:26:38","date_gmt":"2015-03-12T19:26:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=44639"},"modified":"2015-03-13T03:26:38","modified_gmt":"2015-03-12T19:26:38","slug":"12-year-jail-term-sought-for-canadian-teacher-accused-of-abusing-kids-in-indonesia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/03\/13\/12-year-jail-term-sought-for-canadian-teacher-accused-of-abusing-kids-in-indonesia\/","title":{"rendered":"12 year jail term sought for Canadian teacher accused of abusing kids in Indonesia"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"arrest<\/a><\/p>\n

JAKARTA, Indonesia — Indonesian prosecutors are seeking 12-year jail terms for a Canadian teacher and an Indonesian teaching assistant accused of sexually abusing three young children at a prestigious international school.<\/p>\n

Neil Bantleman, of Burlington, Ont., and Ferdinant Tjiong, who were arrested in July, say they are innocent, as do a number of fellow teachers and the principal at the Jakarta International School.<\/p>\n

They are being tried on charges of violating the Child Protection Law, which provides a maximum penalty of 15 years in jail.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors told reporters after a hearing Thursday that the heavy sentences are being sought because as teachers they had traumatized the victims.<\/p>\n

“As teachers they have to set a good example, instead of committing deeds that cause trauma to the students that takes a long time to treat,” prosecutor Ade Rohimah said.<\/p>\n

Defence pleas are scheduled for next week and a verdict is expected April 2.<\/p>\n

Guy Bantleman, the brother of the Canadian teacher on trial, says his family is obviously concerned, given the latest news.<\/p>\n

“To get to this point with no credible evidence being presented either materially or medically is quite concerning,” he said.<\/p>\n

“The prosecutors announcing to the media what they’re seeking as far as a jail term goes against the judge’s directive of not discussing this outside of the court,” he added.<\/p>\n

In December, five janitors at the school were sentenced to up to eight years in jail in the same case.<\/p>\n

They were arrested last April following reports from the parents of a six-year-old boy who said he had been sodomized. Police said a sixth suspect in that group committed suicide while in custody by drinking bathroom cleanser.<\/p>\n

The school is attended by children of foreign diplomats, expatriates and Indonesia’s elite. It has 2,400 students aged three to 18 from about 60 countries.<\/p>\n

Bantleman’s family has been urging Ottawa to publicly declare its support for the Ontario man.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JAKARTA, Indonesia — Indonesian prosecutors are seeking 12-year jail terms for a Canadian teacher and an Indonesian teaching assistant accused …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":21524,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","mauthors-the-canadian-press1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44639\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}