Indonesian teacher sentenced to life in prison for defiling 13 students

A High Court in Indonesia on Tuesday sentenced a 36-year-old teacher, Herry Wirawan, to life imprisonment for sexually assaulting 13 underage female students.

Wirawan, who is the proprietor of the boarding school, was said to have groomed and defiled the minors who were between the ages of 11 and 16 years.

The incident shocked the Asian country in May last year when the parents of one of the victims discovered their child was pregnant.

“The suspect, who was also a religious teacher, had been sexually assaulting the girls since 2016 and impregnated eight of them. They had given birth to nine of his children,” prosecutors told the court while pushing for a death sentence.

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“Most of the girls were vulnerable as they were away from their families and cut off from regular contact with them. Their mobile phones were confiscated and trips home were only allowed once a year.”

But in their ruling, judges at Bandung District Court sentenced Wirawan to life in jail.

They also rejected the prosecutors’ demand for the convict to be punished with chemical castration.

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