An Indonesian court has sentenced two educators at an international school in Jakarta to 10 years each in prison for sexually abusing kindergarten children.
Judges in two separate benches at the South Jakarta district court on Thursday found Neil Bantleman, a Canadian school administrator, and Ferdinand Tjiong, an Indonesian teaching assistant, guilty of sexually abusing pupils last year.
The parents of at least three kindergartners at Jakarta International School came forward last year with allegations of sexual abuse by members of the school's teaching staff.
Bentleman and Tjiong have vehemently denied the allegations.
Bantleman's lawyer Hotman Paris Hutapea said his client would appeal.
He said the panel of judges had ignored evidence presented by the defence team, including the result of medical examinations in Singapore which he said showed that one of the boys had not been sodomised.
"The medical examinations by Singapore doctors ... showed there were no anal injuries," he said.
Tjiong said after the verdict was announced that the case was "fabricated." The school has since been renamed Jakarta Intercultural School.
