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Mozambique: Turkish Child Abusers Jailed
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Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique (Maputo)
3 July 2008
Posted to the web 3 July 2008
Maputo
A Maputo court on Wednesday sentenced two Turkish citizens, Yener Cubkou and Fatih Kombey, to a year's imprisonment for physical abuse of 17 Mozambican children in their care.
Bernardo Matusse, the presiding judge at the court in Maputo's Third Urban District, also ordered the two defendants to pay 75,000 meticais (about 3,100 US dollars) in compensation to each of the 17 abused children.
Matusse added that, since the two Turks were in Mozambique illegally, the case papers would be passed to the immigration authorities (which will almost certainly mean that that they will be expelled from the country, after serving their sentences). They had both entered Mozambique on tourist visas which had expired.
The 17 boys were in a residence run by the Turks in the Maputo neighbourhood of Triunfo. They were from Moslem families, and it seems that they had been recruitred via mosques in the belief that the Turks would teach them the Koran. Cubkou and Kombey denied this, saying they had never claimed to be teachers, and they were merely looking after the children, providing them with food and clothing, and ensuring that they attended normal Mozambican schools.
The court, however, found that Kombey repeatedly beat the children, sometimes on his own and sometimes n the presence of Cubkou. His only response to misbehaviour by the children was physical assault.
There was "continuous, repeated and systematic" repression of the boys by Kombey. When the children complained to Cubkou, he did nothing to halt his colleague's violence.
Despite the Turks' denial, the court found that religious education of a sort was taking place at the house. The children were obliged to wake up at 03.00 to begin praying and learning the Koran off by heart. The children were then obliged to sweep and clean the house, and to do the cooking.
In between doing the chores and learning the Koran, the children were given no free time of their own for leisure activities. A report presented to the court by the Centre for Juvenile Psychological Rehabilitation said the children showed signs of trauma that would take a long time to cure.
The court declared that the two Turks had committed serious violations of the clauses in the Mozambican constitution protecting children, and the various international convention on children's rights that Mozambique has ratified.
The Turks were also accused of sexual abuse, and were routinely labelled as paedophiles in much of the press. However, two of the children, interviewed on television with their faces blacked out, said that it was a third man, named Mustafa, who subsequently fled to South Africa, who had abused them sexually.
The trial was delayed in June when Kombey claimed he was unable to understand either Portuguese or English. It seemed as if the court would have to find someone who could translate from Turkish into Portuguese. However, it subsequently emerged that the claim was untrue and that Kombey would speak adequate Portuguese.
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The defence lawyer for the two men, Zelma Vasconcelos, has appealed against the verdict and sentence. The judge ruled that, while a higher court is hearing the appeal, the two men must remain in prison.
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| Copyright © 2008 Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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