Sandesh Prabhudesai
28 July 2000
Following a "Red Corner" notice last year, the Interpol has arrested Raymond Andrew Varley, a British national, in the decade-old infamous Freddy Peats case. He is the fourth accused arrested in the international child abuse racket run from Goa.
81-year old Peats, who was running an orphanage called 'Gurukul' near Colva beach in South Goa since 1974, has already been convicted for life imprisonment in 1996 after his 20-year old racket was busted in April 1991.
But his three more associates from Australia, Sweden and Germany are still moving freely while 61-year old Dominique Sabire, a French national arrested in Delhi while in transit to Nepal in 1998, has already managed to jump the bail in February this year.
Only 60-year old E C McBride alias Owens, a New Zealand national, is presently locked up in a jail here as the undertrial. He has been convicted twice in his own country for sexually abusing children.
All the seven accused have been chargesheeted by the Delhi CBI under six different sections of the IPC and the Juvenile Justice Act for hiring young children for sexual abuse and prostitution as well as involving themselves in unnatural offences and conspiracy.
They were not only personally involved in child abuse but also running a racket through Peats in 'supplying' these orphan children for the sexual pleasure to thousands of such paedophiles spread all over the world. Taking full benefit of their economic conditions, Peats was housing them at 'Gurukul' and abusing them.
The paedophilic activities continued even after Peat's arrest in '91 while the local authorities preferred terming Peats racket as an 'isolated case', till the high court ordered the CBI to investigate Peat's international links, at the intervention of Bombay-based child rights activist Sheela Barse in 1995.
Varley, arrested in London, was earlier living in Thailand since 1992. Records unearthed by the Delhi CBI reveal that he had visited Goa even in 1994 while Peats was undergoing the court trial. Even his other associates are found to have been visiting the tourist state till 1995.
"Prosecution against Varley would begin once he is extradited to India", says S B Faria, the public prosecutor here appearing for the CBI. He is presently awaiting the high court order where he had challenged dropping of some charges against McBride by the lower court earlier.
While Interpol has managed to nab the second accused after 61-year old McBride was arrested in New Zealand, the state police are simply allowing the arrested paedophiles to disappear from the country.
While French national Sabire managed to jump bail in February this year from Calangute, Brinkman Helmut, a German paedophile arrested in yet another child abuse case, managed to escape from India in October last year, due to sheer negligence of police and Delhi immigration authorities.
Brinkman was arrested in August 1998 for sexually harassing a 12-year old Bombay boy in a Goan hotel. While he was convicted in February last year with six years rigorous imprisonment, he was acquitted by the upper court later. Even before the state could challenge it in the high court, he escaped from the Delhi air port.
The CBI and the Interpol are however still on a look out for Sabire as well as three more accused – Warner Wolf Ingo from Australia, Nills Oscar Johnson from Sweden and 40-year old Zell Jurgen Andrea alias Yogi from Germany – linked to the Peats case.
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