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The JIS Debacle and Criminal Record Checks
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Listerine



Joined: 15 Jun 2014
Posts: 340

PostPosted: Fri Jan 09, 2015 7:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Any updates? When are they expected to stand trial?

I laughed reading one of the comments on the HuffPo from BradleyCooper's US ambassador issued quote along the lines of....

"America should keep mind its own business. Indonesia is a nation of rules and laws where judicial process is followed!!!"

Quite clearly some either some anti American nincompoop who never spent any time in the RI, or some Kemang-dwelling head-up-their-ass local who actually believes the G-20 hubris while being too busy on their iPhone 6 to notice the beggars and slums outside their own doorstep.

I was in West Kalimantan in 1998 when the local Dayaks took a disliking to how the Madurese transmigrasis conducted themselves. Disrespecting the local girls, gambling etc. The end result was an outbreak of headhunting and cannibalism which left thousands dead. My buddy who left the area a few days after me, driven out by his gun toting father-in-law said there was a human head driven into a spike every few hundred meters most of the distance between Singkawang and Pontianak.

Or fast forward a few years I lived with the missus' family up the road from Poso. People would literally shit their pants every time a Manado bound bus would pass through town from Central Sulawesi. Laskar Kristen guys guarding the churches and schools 24/7 lest the decapitations, mass rapes and bombings kick off up there also.

Indonesia can be a scary fu*ken place. Spend your life in Kuningan sports bars and singing karaoke in Grand Indonesia and you won't know shit about the reality. Leave the Golden Triangle and you're realize quick smart that rules, laws and judicial process extend for about as long as you remain popular and as quickly as you can say Cikeusik.
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bradleycooper



Joined: 12 Apr 2013
Posts: 310

PostPosted: Mon Jan 12, 2015 2:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

An excellent post, Listerine. You obviously see through all the BS and self-interest that goes on in these expat ghettos. I think a lot of comes down to self-interest. They are on a good wicket in their mansions in South Jakarta so they choose not to know how many bribes are being paid behind the scenes for them to do business in Indonesia. They turn a blind eye.

You are dead right about Indonesian Borneo too. When I went there in 2006 the Dayaks around Sampit told me they had 'collected 2000 skulls' during the 2002 inter-communal killings. Now that's 4 times the official figure but then the Indonesian army hid in the barracks once the machetes came out, so how would they know many people really died? And don't even get me started on Halmahera, where there were 10.000 murders in 2001. The atmosphere up there is still truly ominous in some areas.

But as you say, the expat excuse-maker crowd will close their eyes to the ugly truth, unless they are the next ones to annoy the wrong person. After all, this is the week when it was revealed that the crashed Air Asia flight did not even have a permit to be in the air that day! If you slip money into the right hands in Indonesia, you can even get a plane into the air without official permits...Or 61 illegal flights as it has been revealed!

As for the JIS case, the judges seem to be making it harder and harder to get information. They are aware how badly the whole case is now viewed and don't want any more embarrassing details in the public eye. The following information will give you some idea of the travesty of justice that this case is, including gagging people even outside of court:

"JIS teacher Neil Bantleman and teaching assistant Ferdinant Tjiong could face up to 15 years behind bars as prosecutors charged them under Article 82 of the Child Protection Law for allegedly sexually abusing three kindergarten pupils of the prestigious school.

Limited information on the trial is available. The law stipulates that any trial involving an underage person must be held behind closed doors.

However, last week a panel of judges chaired by Nur Aslam Bustaman added to the sense of isolation surrounding the case by prohibiting any related parties in the trial from making statements to the media, to maintain the trial’s “privacy”.

Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) coordinator Haris Azhar said the judges had overstepped their authority by taking such a position.
“The judges have no right to make any regulation beyond the courtroom,” he said.

According to him, the main consideration in holding a closed-door trial requirement for cases involving underage persons was to protect the child’s psychological condition instead of creating a barrier between the public and any information on the trial.

“A closed-door trial does not mean information must be kept inside [the court]. The public has a right to know what happened in the trial, even if it is only from lawyers or prosecutors,” Haris told The Jakarta Post on Friday."


But the judges don't want people to know what is going on inside the courtroom. Because what is going on is a travesty of justice.


Last edited by bradleycooper on Mon Jan 12, 2015 2:51 pm; edited 1 time in total
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bradleycooper



Joined: 12 Apr 2013
Posts: 310

PostPosted: Mon Jan 12, 2015 2:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I thought it is worth mentioning that these teachers have now successfully sued the mother of the alleged victim for defamation in Singapore. Her accusations were found to be so baseless and unsubstantiated by the Singapore court as to amount to a severe case of defamation. The teachers will be awarded upwards of $250,000 for the defamation they have been subjected to by this mother. Here is a report from the Straits Times:

"EVEN as a Canadian school administrator and an Indonesian teaching assistant stand trial in Jakarta for child sex assault, their lawyers in Singapore have successfully sued the mother of an alleged victim for defamation.
The Singapore High Court has ordered the 33-year-old mother, a German, to pay damages after she was sued for defamation earlier this year by Neil Bantleman and Ferdinant Michel, together with the Jakarta International School and the principal of its elementary section Elsa Donohue.
The suit is over statements the mother had allegedly made against the plaintiffs, said their lawyer Chew Kei Jin from Tan Rajah & Cheah. The High Court issued judgment by default against her after she failed to show up to defend herself.

A hearing was held in Singapore last Tuesday in the run-up to the assessment of damages. Damages at the High Court level start at $250,000. On the same day in Jakarta, the mother and her young son gave testimony at the ongoing criminal trial of Bantleman, 45, and Michel, 41, her husband told The Straits Times.

The trial comes in the wake of the conviction on Monday of the school's contract janitors for sexually abusing a six-year-old boy.
The four men were each jailed for eight years and fined 100 million rupiah (S$11,000) by the Indonesian court. A woman cleaner was jailed for seven years for being an accomplice and also fined.
The trial of the janitors is separate from the one involving Bantleman, a Canadian, and Michel, an Indonesian.

The high-profile court cases have scandalised Jakarta's expatriate circles and plunged the school into crisis. Founded in 1951, the school is said to be the country's largest international school with 2,600 students, many of them children of affluent expatriates and Indonesians.
The woman being sued had lived for about two years in Jakarta, where her 41-year-old husband worked in a multinational firm. Speaking to The Straits Times from Jakarta last Wednesday, her husband said he had not received any papers about the defamation suit.
He added that he would attend to other matters and "take action" after the criminal trial against the two men is concluded. The Jakarta trial resumes today
."

K.C. VIJAYAN
Source: Straits Times © Singapore Press Holdings Ltd. Permission required for reproduction.
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bradleycooper



Joined: 12 Apr 2013
Posts: 310

PostPosted: Thu Jan 29, 2015 6:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The case involving the expats is now the subject of a very strict gag order from the court, so it is hard to know what is going on. The official reason given for the gag order is the need to protect the privacy of the child, but this is a joke in this situation, as the mother had already broadcast the lurid details of the alleged offences to all and sundry in the media. Even the details of medical examinations at various clinics had been reported in the press. Most pundits and commentators feel that the real purpose of the gag order is to protect the court from ridicule. Allegations of the 'secret dungeons beneath the school' and 'conjured magic stones' variety had led most expats to conclude that this case was a classic case of false memory syndrome. The judge is not protecting the child so much as himself.

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/01/29/judges-continue-blocking-information-jis-trial.html
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bradleycooper



Joined: 12 Apr 2013
Posts: 310

PostPosted: Mon Mar 16, 2015 8:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The prosecution are demanding 12 year jail terms for the teachers in this case. Considering that the cleaners were jailed despite not a shred of medical or forensic evidence linking them to the alleged crimes, I would say these guys are going to prison. Considering how hardline the Jokowi government is playing with foreign lives (Joko has authorized the execution of 64 foreign drug suspects, with 6 already murdered by firing squad), it seems useless to look to him as a moderating influence. A fuller report can be seen here:

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/03/13/prosecutors-seek-12-years-imprisonment-jis-teachers.html
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plumpy nut



Joined: 12 Mar 2011
Posts: 1652

PostPosted: Mon Mar 16, 2015 7:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

bradleycooper wrote:


(Joko has authorized the execution of 64 foreign drug suspects, with 6 already murdered by firing squad),


I have very little sympathy for drug dealers that deal in that kind of volume. However I wonder if the generals & the police have sold off any of the drugs the dealers brought in for the huge profits. This is a warning to those who want to come teach in Indonesia, or want to even be in Indonesia.
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bradleycooper



Joined: 12 Apr 2013
Posts: 310

PostPosted: Mon Mar 30, 2015 2:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Another similar case has just emerged at High Scope Cilandak. The school has been reported to police by the mother of a 7 year old child. If the assault really happened, it is good the perpetrator has been exposed, but there are once again strange fantasy elements to the reports, including a secret room under the library which does not even exist. This is all strangely reminiscent of the magic stones and secret dungeons the child reported at JIS. There was this, for example, in the Jakarta Post report:

"The statement said further that when the mother and her son were brought to the library, the boy said the incident took place in a room beneath the floor that was connected by a secret door. High Scope denied that there was any such room in the school".

The school is saying the accusations are defamation. High Scope Cilandak may not been a great place to look for a job in the coming months.
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Listerine



Joined: 15 Jun 2014
Posts: 340

PostPosted: Thu Apr 02, 2015 1:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bantleman got a 10 year sentence…

"Neil Bantleman is guilty of having sexually abused students at the Jakarta International School, the South Jakarta District Court ruled on Thursday, sentencing the Canadian national to 10 years in prison and a Rp 100 million ($7,700) fine to conclude a much-criticized trial."

http://thejakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/news/jakarta/hold-for-jis-ruling-today-breaking-canadian-jis-teacher-found-not-guilty-of-abusing-boy/

Mindblowing, but not unexpected.

*edit* no idea why the URL says "not guilty"...stoopid Jakarta globe.
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bradleycooper



Joined: 12 Apr 2013
Posts: 310

PostPosted: Thu Apr 02, 2015 2:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

What a disgrace. The poor guy. Not a scrap of DNA evidence, a witness statement which was changed several times to remove the references to secret dungeons and stones ''materializing out of thin air'', and many people in the school who were never even interviewed.

And then there was the fact that 3 different medical investigations concluded that there was no evidence the boy had ever been raped. Not to mention the fact that one Indonesian cleaner died during police interrogations after refusing to confess. An utter disgrace and a ruin of so many lives. I am completely outraged and sickened.

And now the real business can get underway. Under Indonesian law the mother's $125 million lawsuit against JIS could not proceed until there was a criminal prosecution. How would the judge have got his cut of this massive fortune if he didn't rule against Neil? Worryingly, there are already copycat cases lined up. A mother has already come forward at High Scope alleging a sexual assault in ''a secret room under the library''. He was medically examined and the hospital found no evidence of an assault but the case hasn't been dropped. Here we go again.
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plumpy nut



Joined: 12 Mar 2011
Posts: 1652

PostPosted: Thu Apr 02, 2015 3:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Is the Canadian government going to raise hell? Would the US government raise hell if it were an American? Hell no. The guy is screwed. Anybody else want to come and try out Indonesia?
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bradleycooper



Joined: 12 Apr 2013
Posts: 310

PostPosted: Fri Apr 03, 2015 3:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

plumpy nut wrote:
Is the Canadian government going to raise hell? Would the US government raise hell if it were an American? Hell no. The guy is screwed. Anybody else want to come and try out Indonesia?


Teachers have been giving up on Indonesia in droves since 2011 but since the JIS case broke, it's been getting even worse. Look on the comments section of the Jakarta Globe or Jakarta Post and you'll find teachers trying to break their contracts or leaving as soon as they can. All you need is one greedy mother making up some far-fetched story and a $1 million lawsuit is underway.
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Tazz



Joined: 26 Sep 2013
Posts: 512
Location: Jakarta

PostPosted: Sun Apr 05, 2015 6:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Feel for anybody stuck in Indonesia now-teachers especially. The whole case against the Bantleman guy was a contrived story created in order to extract cash against the school by an opportunistic mother....wonder what 'cut' the judge/ jury are on if she succeeds.....?!!! Time to get out people.
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Atoms for Peace



Joined: 06 Feb 2006
Posts: 135
Location: NKRI

PostPosted: Mon Apr 06, 2015 2:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Tazz wrote:
The whole case against the Bantleman guy was a contrived story created in order to extract cash against the school by an opportunistic mother...


There's more to it than this. The main aim of this fiasco is to get JIS moved off the extremely valuable land it occupies in South Jakarta. Apparently an extremely well-connected Indonesian businessman is behind the whole plan, including the coaching of "witnesses". In today's Indonesia, nobody is going to defend a foreigner, and the fact that his life is being ruined is irrelevant to those after money....
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bradleycooper



Joined: 12 Apr 2013
Posts: 310

PostPosted: Mon Apr 06, 2015 2:35 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Atoms for Peace wrote:
Tazz wrote:
The whole case against the Bantleman guy was a contrived story created in order to extract cash against the school by an opportunistic mother...


There's more to it than this. The main aim of this fiasco is to get JIS moved off the extremely valuable land it occupies in South Jakarta. Apparently an extremely well-connected Indonesian businessman is behind the whole plan, including the coaching of "witnesses". In today's Indonesia, nobody is going to defend a foreigner, and the fact that his life is being ruined is irrelevant to those after money....


For many years, JIS was paying just $1 a year or some such for the land. That has been greatly increased now, but the land is massively valuable and JIS are still paying far below market value. According to the Jakarta rumor mill, powerful people stand to make hundreds of millions of dollars if JIS closes. That's apart from the mother, who is claimign $125 million in damages. Jakarta is currently in the midst of a property boom and South Jakarta is prime real estate.

In another worrying development, the Jakarta Police have now summonsed the management of High Scope in for questioning. With the successful prosecutions at JIS secured, another international school is now being shaken down by parents and the police. Unbelievably, these allegations also involve a secret room, this one beneath the library.

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/04/06/greater-jakarta-highscope-management-be-summoned.html
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plumpy nut



Joined: 12 Mar 2011
Posts: 1652

PostPosted: Mon Apr 06, 2015 2:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

They killed Osama. Send in special forces to free the teacher. Show Indonesia just how special they are among the world scene.
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