THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A male Swiss flight attendant, Stefano Camesi, 42, has been sentenced to 18 months in a Swiss jail for abusing two Malayali boys below the age of 14 in an unregistered orphanage in Kochi.
The abuse had taken place two years ago, between September 10 and October 31, during which Stefano Camesi had enrolled as a ‘volunteer’ in the orphanage called Dil Se Trust at Maanassery in Kochi.
The crime came to light by chance, a month after Camesi left for Switzerland. One of the boys allegedly abused by Camesi was caught sexually exploiting a younger boy in the orphanage.
When the accused boy was questioned by the management, he revealed that all that he had asked the younger boy to do were the things Camesi had asked him to do.
Cristelle Hart, a French lady who co-founded Dil Se Trust, waited for eight months before she complained about the abuse to the Swiss Police.
The Swiss Police promptly swooped down on Camesi’s house in Zurich, Switzerland. Child pornography materials and other incriminating evidence that established his paedophilia were seized from the house.
When Camesi was interrogated, he admitted to abusing the two boys in Kochi. On March 25, Court of Zurich’s Eighth Department Judge Nuotcla sentenced Stefano Camesi to 18 months in jail. Swiss Air had a week earlier dismissed Camesi from service.
Dil Se Trust in Kochi is an unregistered orphanage. Neither the Social Welfare Department or the Kochi Police is aware of such an organisation.
When ‘Express’ called a contact number given in Dil Se’s official site, www.dilse.ch, a lady, who said she was new to the place, answered the phone. The new caretaker lady said there were ‘’five to six’’ boys under her charge, boys between the ages of 10 and 15.
The lady said Cristelle Hart ran the house and that she had gone to her native place in France. Cristelle’s husband is now in charge, she added. Gaudenz Looser, a Swiss journalist, who managed to contact Cristelle Hart was told that she had given up control over the orphanage after the incident.
The caretaker lady, however, did not give ‘Express’ the contact details of Cristelle’s husband or even his name.
The Swiss judge, while pronouncing his judgment on March 25, said that Stefano Camesi himself had been a child abuse victim. Camesi has a disturbed mind and had tried to kill himself twice before he came to Kochi as a ‘volunteer’, the Judge said.
The judge also directed that Camesi take a psychological therapy while in jail. Judge Nuotcla said it was highly improper of the organisation, Dil Se, to allow massage of children without supervision. It was while massaging the boys that Camesi made indecent moves.
Gaudenz Looser said the Swiss Child Protection Association had warned that volunteering among Swiss nationals was on the rise.
The Association, according to Gaudenz, had also publicly stated that the volunteer group was highly sensible because paedophile predators had effectively infiltrated the system.