Goa Cina Beach in East Java’s Malang district. (JG Photo/Dyah Ayu Pitaloka)

Malang, East Java. The Malang District Court on Thursday acquitted all four defendants in the 2013 death of a university freshman after prosecutors failed to secure the family’s permission to conduct an autopsy of the victim’s body.

Fikri Dolas Mantya Surya, a freshman at Malang’s National Technology Institute (ITN) died on Oct. 12, 2013 during a four-day hazing ritual at Goa Cina beach on the southern coast of the East Java district. His death was the center of the Jakarta Globe’s three-part investigation published in January 2014.

The four defendants — three of the hazing event’s organizers and an ITN lecturer who was supposed to oversee the procession — were found not guilty by the court of negligence which resulted in death, as previously charged.

Fikri Dolas Mantya Surya in his ITN jacket. (Photo courtesy of his family)

“There was no evidence of negligence,” Presiding Judge Bambang Hery Mulyono said in his ruling. The court also noted that the defendants’ “good names” should be restored as they had endured “administrative sanctions from the campus as well as social sanction from society for the last two years.”

The judge said Fikri’s family’s refusal to permit an autopsy to be performed on Fikri’s body had made it difficult to determine how he died, despite acknowledging that there were bruises all over his body and a dark ooze dripping out of his mouth and nose.

“Experts have also told the court that such signs can also occur in natural death,” Judge Bambang said.

The hazing event’s chief organizer, Putra Arif Budi Santoso, its operational chief Natalia Damayanti, security chief Halimurrahman, and ITN’s planology department head Ibnu Sasongko were arrested two months after Fikri’s death after photos of the event were posted online.

Several ITN freshmen leaked the images, which depicted participants enduring abusive and degrading treatment.

The freshmen also told police that organizers had only provided two plastic bottles of water for a group of between four to six students during the proceedings — leading to exhaustion and extreme dehydration among some of the group. The court, however, accepted this fact as the organizers’ way “of building camaraderie and discipline” between freshmen.

Prosecutors earlier sought six months in prison for ITN lecturer Ibnu and eight months in prison for the three student organizers. The ruling was met with jubilation among all four defendants and their supporters.

Since Fikri’s death the ITN has barred all off-campus orientation events, while the three seniors were suspended for two semesters but allowed to continue their study afterwards. Chief organizer Putra will soon graduate.

The post All Defendants Acquitted in Malang Freshman’s Death appeared first on The Jakarta Globe.

‘Two Islamic junior high students say their principal kissed and fondled them. (JG Photo/Yudhi Sukma Wijaya)

Malang. The principal of an Islamic junior high school in Malang District, East Java, was arrested by local police for allegedly sexually molesting two of his students, both 14 years old.

The principal, identified only by his initials “A.R.,” has been charged with sexually assaulting minors and is now under police custody.

He faces five years in jail if convicted.

“It happened on Jan. 31,” said First Insp. Sutiyo, chief of the Malang Police’s women and children protection unit on Monday. “Two parents filed a report and we have examined seven witnesses.”

According to witnesses, the assault occurred at a field in Kenanga Village, where students of the Islamic school were out on a scout camping trip.

During a bonfire event at around 11 p.m. that day, the victims L.S. and R.R. fell ill and some teachers brought the two teens to the only dry and comfortable place available, the principal’s car.

The principal said that he would stay in the car and watch over the pair. But instead he allegedly molested the girls after the others left.

Both victims reported their ordeals to their parents, saying that the principal had kissed and touched their breasts.

Police had also examined the victims with the help of a psychologist.

“According to the expert, both victims suffered from [psychological] trauma from the assault although they showed different symptoms,” the officer said.

L.S., Sutiyo continued, has trouble eating while R.R. is still shocked by the ordeal. Both refused to go back to school.

The principal has denied the charges claiming that the two girls were “possessed” and that he was merely trying to help them.

“At the time, I was simply blowing air into their eyes and whispering [Koranic] verses into their ears while checking their pulse,” A.R. said at the police headquarters where he is currently detained.

The principal also said a number of teachers were trying to frame him and make false accusations against him.

“It seemed that there are certain teachers who are envious of me because I have been a principal for too long, ten years to be exact,” he said, adding that he will not file any complaints against the teachers.

“I will let God punish them,” he said.

The case adds a long list of teachers and principals sexually assaulting and harassing their students, including those in Islamic schools.

Last September, a cleric at an Islamic boarding school in Jember, East Java, was accused of raping at least eleven pupils between the age of 15 and 17.

The cleric, identified as Ibrahim Kholil, is now awaiting trial. He faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.

In 2013, Nurokhim, a Koran teacher at an Islamic boarding school in Temanggung, Central Java, was arrested for harassing and assaulting at least six of his underage female students over the course of six months.

He is now serving a four-year prison sentence.

In Jakarta, a 72 year-old Koran teacher named Kosim Chotib is now serving 10 years in prison for raping and assaulting at least 32 underage students at an Islamic school he founded, between 2007 and 2011 including a 10-year-old girl.

The post ‘Possessed’ Girls Claim Abuse by Islamic School Principal appeared first on The Jakarta Globe.