Sandesh Prabhudesai
6 October 2000
The local bench of the Bombay high court, in a significant order, has held French national Dominique Sabire a conspirator along with Freddy Peats in the infamous two-decade long child abuse racket that was busted here in 1991.
While quashing and setting aside the order of the Margao sessions court issued in May last year to separate Sabire from being tried along with Peats and others, the high court has held that there is sufficient evidence against him for trying him with a charge of conspiracy.
The 61-year old French paedophile, who was arrested in Delhi while in transit to Nepal in 1998, has however already managed to jump bail in February. In spite of issuing non-bailable warrant against him later, both the Goa and Delhi police have failed to trace him.
"Presuming that he has already fled the country, the next step would be to get a proclamation issued against Sabire and sent to the Interpol to trace him in France", says Adv S B Faria, the CBI counsel handling the cases locally. He however does not know why the whole procedure has been delayed.
The Delhi CBI has also not succeeded in extraditing Raymond Andrew Varley, a British national arrested in London in July by the Interpol, to India so far. The only undertrial jailed here is 60-year old E C McBride alias Owens, a New Zealand national. Peats has already been punished with life imprisonment.
While Sabire was also remanded to the judicial custody pending trial, the sessions court had then released him on 23 June last year by granting a conditional bail, directing him to report to the CBI's Panaji office initially and then at the Calangute police station. He then conveniently jumped bail in connivance with the police.
While the local authorities were refusing to admit existence of paedophilic activities in the tourist state till recently, the ruling politicians are equally negligent in taking action against the police officials who have helped the child abusers from fleeing the country.
Brinkman Helmut, a German national convicted by the lower court in February last year in yet another child abuse case, managed to escape the country by October soon after the sessions court acquitted him, even before his acquittal was challenged in the high court.
Interestingly, the paedophiles have always taken advantage of the orders issued by the sessions to get away with their criminal activities of abusing poor Indian children for their pervert sexual enjoyment, with the help of corrupt police officials.
The laxity on the part of the authorities however still continues as they prefer denying the fact that paedophiles have made Goa as their famous destination, rather than taking steps to control their moving around with the kids with a firm hand.
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