A French man faces execution by firing squad in Indonesia after allegedly molesting more than 300 underaged girls and physically assaulting those who denied him sex.
According to local authorities, pensioner Francois Abello Camille, 65, was apprehended last month at a hotel in Indonesia’s capital Jakarta, where they discovered two underaged girls in his room in a report by The Daily Mail.
Camille faces death by firing squad or life in prison if convicted on the raft of charges, including accusations he filmed the illicit encounters, under Indonesia’s child protection laws.
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Videos were found on Camille’s laptop computer that showed him performing illegal sex acts on hundreds of children aged between 10 and 17.
The pensioner had entered Indonesia on a tourist visa several times over the past five years. According to the police:
He would approach children and lure them by offering them work as models. The ones who agreed to have sex with him would get paid between 250,000 and one million rupiah ($17-70). Those who didn’t want to have sex would be beaten, slapped, and kicked by the suspect.
Video footage circulating online shows a handcuffed Camille with his head bowed as he is flanked by 10 Indonesian police officers during a press conference.
Police said they believed Camille had been molesting Indonesian children for years and that there may be more victims.
Indonesia’s Witness and Victim Protection Agency (LPSK) receives a growing number of requests to protect victims of child sexual abuse. As of June 2019, the agency was reviewing 78 cases. Edwin Partogi Pasaribu, the deputy chairman of LPSK, said the agency deals with at least four cases every week.
Achmadi, also a deputy chairman of the LPSK, said 80% of those cases were committed by the victim’s close relatives and 20% by strangers.
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