Paedophile Aussie gets 10 years in jail

A Goa court punishes Warner Ingo for being part of a child sex abuse racket, reports Tushar Srivastava.

A Goa sessions court on Wednesday sentenced Australian Warner Wulf Ingo to 10 years in jail for being part of a child sex abuse racket that was busted in 1991.

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Ingo, 44, was found guilty of kidnapping children and sexually abusing them between 1980 and 1991 at an orphanage in Fatorda, a town in Goa, the Central Bureau of Investigation said. Ingo was an accomplice of the late Freddy Peats, the main accused and the man who ran the home for boys.

The CBI had registered the case against seven persons, including six foreign nationals, in July 1995. Apart from Ingo and Peats, EC Macbride (New Zealand), Nils Oscar Johnson (Sweden), Yorgen (Germany), Raymond A Varley (UK) and Dominique Sebire (France) are the other accused.

While delivering the verdict, Judge Anand Salkar said the accused had exploited children from poor families.

Peats was arrested in 1991 and convicted in March 1996. Investigators said Peats was believed to be German, but his nationality could not be established during the investigation. He died in an Indian prison in April 2005 while serving a life sentence. In 2002, Macbride was sent to jail for seven years.

Ingo fled to Australia, but he was arrested in Sydney and brought to India in 2005. He has already served two years in jail. He did not react as the judge read out the sentence. Ingo and his lawyer did not comment on the sentence, and it was not known whether they would appeal the decision.

The ring was uncovered in 1991 after the son of Peats' neighbor complained to his father that he had been sexually abused after being lured to the home. Police found photographs of boys in the orphanage, many posing in the nude or involved in sexual acts.

Police also found drugs that were used to induce the boys into sexual acts. They also found evidence of the sale of some minors abroad.

(With inputs from AP)