from Daijiworld's special correspondent
Panaji, Mar 3: Warner Wulf Ingo, an Australian national, accomplice of notorious paedophile Freddy Peats, was on Saturday convicted by South Goa's district and sessions court in the paedophilia racket that was busted in this tourist state almost fifteen years ago.
Freddy Peats, main convict in the paedophilia racket, convicted in March 1996, died in April 2005 while undergoing imprisonment.
The local court today passed the verdict while sentence would be pronounced on March seven.
The racket which was initially being investigated by local police was handed over to the CBI as per the high court orders, after Mumbai-based child rights activist Sheela Barse approached the court, complaining that the local police authorities were not serious enough in their investigations.
Ingo, is an important link in the paedophilia racket, being executed in the name of "gurukul orphanage" at Fatorda, a small town dotting Margao, district capital. The Margao police, in 1991, had busted his decade-long paedophilic racket. After remaining absconding for years together, Ingo was arrested by CBI one-and-half year back.
Earlier to that Peats, arrested on April 3, 1991 and convicted, was sentenced to life imprisonment at the central jail of Aguada.He died at the Goa Medical College hospital, suffering a paralytic attack.
Later, his accomplice Newzealander Eoghan Colm McBride was also sentenced to seven-year rigorous imprisonment in July 2002, along with Peats, for running child prostitution racket in the southern coastal belt here. Dominique Sabir from France, another chain in the racket, arrested in 1996, has managed to jump bail and still absconding.
All the accused are charged for committing offences of criminal conspiracy, kidnapping, abducting and selling minors for prostitution.
Entire country was shocked when Peats' decade-long racket got exposed in 1991. In the name of orphanage, Peats was actually exploiting the destitute children sexually and also selling them to other visiting foreigner paedophiles.