Israeli former president begins jail term for rape

Moshe Katsav: “The truth will come out.”

Former Israeli president Moshe Katsav today began serving a seven-year prison term for rape, professing his innocence and saying he was being “buried alive”.

The case has captivated the country for more than five years and marked the first time a former Israeli head of state has been jailed. Officials say it proves no one is above the law.

US soldier sentenced to 10 years in S.Korea rape case

Protesters stage a rally denouncing the crime of US soldiers in Seoul November 1, 2011.

A South Korean court today sentenced a US Army private to 10 years in prison for sexually assaulting a local teenage girl in one of the heaviest punishments handed to an American serviceman stationed on the divided peninsula.







The case has received active coverage by the local media since the initial news reports and the US military pledged cooperation with South Korean authorities on the investigation.

In 2002, the deaths of two schools girls hit by a US military vehicle conducting exercises and the subsequent acquittal of US soldiers involved in a US court martial led to a massive public outcry and an outpouring of anti-American sentiment in South Korea.

The Uijeongbu District Court said in a sentence that the severity of the crime committed against the victim allowed for the full term as laid out in the sentencing guideline, adding that the status of the defendant did not affect its decision.

The United States has about 28,000 troops in South Korea in the allies’ defence against North Korea, which was accused of mounting two attacks against its southern neighbour last year that killed 50 people. The South has about 650,000 active force soldiers.

The private in the 2nd US Infantry Division had been indicted in September on charges of sexually assaulting the 18-year-old girl in the frontline area about 35km north of Seoul where the US military maintains a heavy presence.

The court declined to release the name of the soldier pending the filing of any appeal by the defendant. A 2nd Infantry Division private affairs officer reached by telephone could not immediately comment whether the soldier would appeal.

'Sex gang groomed girls of 13': Asian men accused of luring teens and turning them into prostitutes

A gang of Asian men went on trial yesterday accused of a sickening catalogue of child prostitution offences against vulnerable teenage girls as young as 13.

The nine – six are married and one is a grandfather – face 55 charges, including inciting child prostitution, grooming and rape between 2007 and 2009.

The girls – who cannot be named for legal reasons – were said to have received cash, alcohol, drugs, meals and mobile phone credit in exchange for sex with some of the defendants.

Three of the men – Ahdel Ali, 23, his brother Mubarek Ali, 28, and Tanveer Ahmed, 39 – allegedly acted as ‘pimps’, passing two of the young girls among their friends and using them as sexual commodities.

Mubarek Ali is also accused of trafficking one of the girls, while Abdul Rouf, 34, and Mohammed Younis, 59, are accused of using their homes as brothels for child prostitution.

Deborah Gould, prosecuting, said: ‘The Crown say that the men in the dock variously trafficked, raped or sexually abused girls both over and under the age of 16 years over a considerable period of time.

‘These men ensnared these girls. They had cars, jobs and money which gave them both freedom and power. They enticed the girls, groomed the girls and then exploited them either for their own sexual gratification or for money.’

 Accused: Mohammed Islam Choudhrey (L) and Noshad Hussain are among the defendants facing trial at Stafford Crown Court

 Also accused: Mohammed Ali Sultan, left, and Marhoof Khan are on trial for sex offences

 Brothels: Defendants Mohammed Yunis, left, and Abdul Rouf are accused of using their homes for child prostitution

'Pimp': Tanveer Ahmed Tanveer Ahmed, 39, allegedly passed two of the young girls among his friends

Miss Gould told Stafford Crown Court that the case was ‘not about race, religion, colour or creed’.

She said some of the seven alleged victims came from troubled backgrounds and their low self-esteem made them ‘highly vulnerable’ to the attentions of the men.

She added: ‘They do not value themselves and therefore have no expectation that they will be valued by others.

'Accordingly when they receive attention from others, particularly what they perhaps perceive to be somewhat exotic older males with money and cars, they soak it up, believing themselves to be the objects of genuine emotions and affections.

‘They believed themselves, and may still believe themselves, to be loved by and in love with some of these men.’

She said the alleged abusers would contact their victims by computer and mobile telephones ‘out of sight, sounds and control of even the most wary parent’.

Some of the girls first met the men in a churchyard in Telford, Shropshire, which had become a gathering place for ‘young Asian males’ who would smoke and drink there.

The court heard the Ali brothers would regularly present one of the girls for other men to have sex with. She was 16 at the time and didn’t realise at first that she was being sold for sex, Miss Gould added.

Men would pay between £20 and £40 and would either hand the money to her ‘pimps’ or pay her. She would then hand the money to them in exchange for mobile phone top-ups.

At one stage, she was 14 weeks pregnant but Mubarek Ali continued to sell her for sex, the jury heard. It is not known what happened to the baby.

After teachers and parents raised fears that the girls were being sexually abused, a police investigation named Operation Chalice began.

In December 2009, officers arrested most of the defendants and charged them with various offences related to child prostitution.

The men on trial – who all used Western nicknames – are Ahdel Ali, Mubarek Ali, Mohammed Ali Sultan, 24, Tanveer Ahmed, Mahroof Khan, 33, Noshad Hussain, 21, Mohammed Islam Choudhrey, 52, Mohammed Younis and Abdul Rouf.

They deny all charges. The trial continues.

Extensive operation: The trial, which is expected to last for several months, is taking place at Stafford Crown Court

Nursery worker, 20, admits horrifying rape of toddler in his care and 45 other sex charges

A paedophile nursery worker pleaded guilty today to raping a toddler in his care and a string of offences linked to the online grooming of more than 20 other girls.

Paul Wilson admitted two counts of oral rape of a girl aged two or three years old.

He also pleaded guilty to a further 45 charges of making and distributing indecent images and inciting youngsters to engage in sexual activity on the internet.

The 20-year-old, of Newbold Croft, Nechells, Birmingham, was charged with rape in January after his arrest on suspicion of child abuse prompted an investigation into his employment at the nearby Little Stars Nursery.

During an earlier hearing at Birmingham Magistrates' Court on April 7, a district judge was told the grooming charges related to a total of 22 girls aged between 12 and 15.

Marni Chimba, prosecuting, told the lower court Wilson used multiple identities to befriend the girls on chatlogs and social networking sites, even pretending sometimes to be a previous victim.

The prosecutor said: 'Some of the aliases were female names and he also pretended to be the complainants, encouraging others to send their movies to him.'

Miss Chimba said some of the victims were directed to expose themselves using webcams. Others were filmed and recorded performing and taking part in sexual acts.

Wilson also distributed indecent images and threatened some of the children that he would show images he had already captured to their friends or parents.

Worker: Wilson worked at the Little Stars Nursery in Birmingham where he admitted orally raping the youngster.Rapist: Male nursery worker Paul Wilson admitted attacking a toddler in his care

Scene of the abuse: Little Stars Nursery in Nechells, Birmingham, where Wilson worked as an assistant

Two counts of oral rape: Paedophile Paul Wilson

One victim said she felt shocked, violated and ashamed.

The girl, who cannot be named, also disclosed her 'pure hatred' for Wilson who, after pressuring her into exposing herself via a webcam, threatened to distribute the images if she refused to follow his orders.

Her mother warned other parents to monitor their children's internet use more closely, saying: 'You think they are on sites, safe, just talking to their friends, but there are outsiders who will latch on and pretend to be their friends and take them for what they want.'

Wilson was warned today by a judge at Birmingham Crown Court that he was facing an indeterminate jail sentence.

Dressed in a white T-shirt and blue jeans, Wilson stood with his right arm folded across his chest as he pleaded guilty to a total of 47 charges on a 50-count indictment.

It took the clerk more than 30 minutes to put the details of the charges to the unshaven nursery assistant, who looked downwards for most of the hearing, only raising his head to enter each individual plea.

Remanding Wilson in custody, Recorder of Birmingham Judge William Davis QC said it was highly likely that an indeterminate life sentence would be imposed when the offender is sentenced by a different judge in July.

'The public have to be protected from you,' Judge Davis said.

'It is almost inevitable that there will be what is called an indeterminate sentence.'

Wilson is the second nursery worker to be convicted of child sex attacks in recent years.

Vanessa George is serving an indeterminate jail term after sparking nationwide outrage for abusing toddlers and taking photos at Little Ted's nursery, in Plymouth.

George, formerly of Douglass Road, Efford, Plymouth, was groomed as part of a major paedophile gang, along with three other women, by IT consultant Colin Blanchard.

Blanchard, formerly of Yea Fold, Rochdale, was told by a judge he may never leave jail for his "deep-rooted and long-standing" sexual abuses.

Strauss-Kahn pleads not guilty to sex charges

Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn (L) stands with his lawyer Ben Brafman at his arraignment hearing in New York Supreme Court in New York, June 6, 2011. Strauss-Kahn entered a plea of not guilty to sexual assault charges and will appear in court again on July 18.


Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn pleaded not guilty today to charges he sexually assaulted a New York hotel maid in a case that cost him his job and a chance at the French presidency.

Wearing a dark suit, Strauss-Kahn arrived at the courthouse with his wife, French television journalist Anne Sinclair, walking beside him, arm-in-arm. They were flanked by two private security guards hired to prevent him from skipping bail.

The couple walked past a throng of media and a large group of hotel workers there in solidarity with the woman who said Strauss-Kahn attacked her. “Shame on you,” they chanted.

Strauss-Kahn, 62, faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted on charges including attempted rape, sex abuse, a criminal sex act, unlawful imprisonment and forcible touching.



Asked to enter his plea, Strauss-Kahn told the court clerk, “Not guilty.” The next date in the case at New York Supreme Court before Judge Michael Obus was set for July 18.

“When the evidence is in, it will be clear there was no forcible compulsion,” defence lawyer Benjamin Brafman told reporters after the hearing, confirming he will contend that any sex with the maid was consensual.

But the maid’s lawyer, Kenneth Thompson, said the notion that the 32-year-old “hard-working single mother” had consensual sex with Strauss-Kahn was “preposterous.”

“All of Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s power, money and influence will not stop the truth of what he did to her in that hotel room from coming out,” he said. “She is going to come into this courthouse, get into that witness stand and tell the world what (he) did to her.”

Strauss-Kahn left the court, holding his wife’s hand. the pair looked stoic as they strode to a black Ford SUV as hotel workers shouted at him and news photographers took pictures.

Praised for his role tackling the 2007-09 global financial crisis and attempts to keep Europe’s debt crisis under control, Strauss-Kahn resigned as managing director of the International Monetary Fund a few days after his May 14 arrest in the first-class section of an Air France plane, minutes before it was to depart New York for Paris.

He was accused of attacking the maid, an African immigrant, a few hours earlier when she came to clean his suite at the luxury Sofitel hotel in Midtown Manhattan, apparently believing it had been vacated.

Today’s arraignment marks the start of what could be lengthy legal proceedings.

A new IMF chief has not yet been appointed. French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde and Mexican central bank chief Agustin Carstens both want to replace Strauss-Kahn.

Peter Ward, president of Local 6 of the New York Hotel Workers Union, was among those outside the court in solidarity with the maid. “She’s our sister and we support her,” he said.

New York hotel worker Beverly Banton said she was once groped by a guest and that while the man was evicted from the hotel, security never called police. “Back then, they said to us, ‘The guests come first,’“ she said. “There’s a lot of people this happened to who didn’t say nothing.”

Until the New York arrest, Strauss-Kahn had been expected to quit his IMF post for a different reason – a bid to become the Socialist candidate for president of France. He had been a strong favourite to beat conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy at the polls next year.

Instead, Strauss-Kahn spent four days in New York’s Rikers Island jail before he was released on US$1 million cash (RM3 million) bail and US$5 million bond and placed under house arrest with 24-hour armed guards and electronic monitoring.

The father of four daughters spent a few days in a Lower Manhattan apartment but is now living in a luxurious townhouse rented by his wife in Manhattan’s TriBeCa district. The townhouse has a gym and home cinema and was last posted for sale for almost US$14 million.

A prosecutor estimated Strauss-Kahn would pay $200,000 a month for his security arrangements.

Strauss-Kahn’s lawyer has said that although his client has a net worth of roughly US$2 million, his wife, an heiress, has deeper pockets. So far, Sinclair has shown no hesitation about using her personal wealth to help her husband.

Evidence Said to Tie IMF Chief to Housekeeper attempted rape - Feminists rally against 'sexist' reaction to IMF arrest - Raw Video: Ex-IMF Chief's Wife at NY Apartment

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former managing director of the International Monetary Fund who has been charged with sexually assaulting her, a person briefed on the matter said on Monday.

Gang-raped for two days, tortured and strangled: Libyan woman finally reveals full horrific details of attack by Gaddafi's thugs

* Iman al-Obeidi says she was held hostage by gang of 15 men, including a cousin of Colonel Gaddafi

A Libyan woman who publicly accused a gang of pro-Gaddafi militiamen - including Colonel Gaddafi's cousin - of gang-raping her has, for the first time, revealed the horrifying details of her alleged attack.

Iman al-Obeidi claimed she was forced into a militia car at a checkpoint, driven to a 'palace' and brutalised by 15 drunk men over a two-day period.

After bursting into a hotel full of foreign journalists to reveal her ordeal more than two weeks ago, the 28-year-old has been charged with slander by the Libyan government and she claims the regime is refusing to allow her to leave Tripoli to return to her family.

Interview: Iman al-Obeidi finally spoke to a CNN reporter about her ordeal after being detained by Gaddafi's troops.Ordeal: She described being raped by 15 men over two days before finally escaping

Intimidation: A Libyan government official grabs al-Obeidi as she reveals details of her attack to journalists

Scuffle: Sky News reporter Lisa Holland, bottom left, and FT journalist Charles Clover, back, attempt to protect al-Obeidi as she is threatened by government minders as she tries to tell her story

Libyan government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim confirmed Al-Obeidi had been raped but alleged she was a prostitute with a criminal record of petty crime and indecency.

However Al-Obeidi, who says she was a law graduate before the attack, vehemently denies Ibrahim's claims.

Still bearing scars and bruises, Al-Obeidi claimed her attackers had been drinking alcohol, which they poured into her eyes, nose, mouth and other parts of her body.

She also said she was subjected to a brutal attack with a Kalashnikov rifle and that one of her attackers was a cousin of Gaddafi.

Al-Obediei said she was returning home from a friend's house on the evening of March 24 when her taxi was stopped at a checkpoint and she was forced to climb into the militia's car when they discovered her ID card showed she was from the rebel-held east.

She said: 'There were a number of militiamen in the Toyota and another girl they had captured and stuffed on the floor of the car under their feet.'

She claims the two were taken to a large property, which looked like a palace, where her two-day rape and torture ordeal took place.

Al-Obeidi added: 'I kept fighting back. I hit back a lot and I kept fighting. They eventually tied my arms and legs together.'

She said that she was tied naked and left on the floor while a total of 15 drunk men took turns to attack her - sometimes three at a time. She alleged the men choked her, covered her head while they raped her and kicked her when they finished.

'My neck turned blue from being strangled,' she said.

Al-Obeidi controversially claimed that one of her attackers was a cousin of Gaddafi and the son of a government minister. She said she recognised him because she and her sister knew his family.

It wasn't until the third day of her captivity that Al-Obeidi was able to escape when another captured girl helped cut the rope from her legs.

She said she jumped out of a window and ran, naked and hysterical, towards the gate threatening the African guards with a metal rod.

She added: 'I could see fear in their faces when they looked at me — my hair was wild, I was naked and screaming.

'I ran down the side of the house screaming and crying and the [rapists'] car was chasing me.

'Neighbours started to come out to look and they protected me.'

Women in the neighbourhood brought her clothes and paid for her taxi. But when they asked if she wanted to go to a police station she refused, adding: 'I didn't go because that's not where I would find justice.'

She instead went straight to the Rixos hotel in Tripoli where she knew the foreign journalists were staying.

Al-Obeidi defied government minders to storm into the hotel on March 26 so she could tell her ordeal to the foreign press - and the television pictures of her outburst were shown around the world.

Journalists were forced to protect Al-Obeidi as Libyan government minders tried to silence her with physical force, with some calling her 'a dog'. Journalists ended up being punched themselves and their equipment was smashed by the minders.

Iman al-Obeidi was then arrested and charged with slander following her claims.

Since her outburst, Al-Obeidi said people on the streets had praised her bravery, with some cab drivers refusing to take her money and, in the rebel-held east, she has been hailed a hero for speaking out in the face of extreme intimidation.

She said: 'Many people - young men and women - come up to me in the street when they know I am Iman al-Obeidi and tell me they admire my courage.

In the east of Libya, she has been held up as a symbol of the brutality of Gaddafi's regime. Women in Benghazi have marched through the city carrying her picture, while local papers have published coverage of her story.

One eastern paper ran a front-page story about a man who offered to marry Al-Obeidi and dispatched a group of friends and relatives to discuss the matter with her parents in the eastern city of Tobruk.

Al-Obeidi was able to tell her story to two female journalists - alone and away from the Libyan government minders who have kept an almost constant watch over the foreign press.

The woman said after her arrest at the hotel she was detained for three days and was beaten, left to lie on the floor without food or drink before being released.

Now Al-Obeidi said the only thing she wants is to return to her family in opposition-controlled eastern Libya. However, the regime is refusing to let her leave Tripoi, she claimed.

'They are trying to punish me, as if I am some sort of enemy and so I am scared and I want to just go home,' she said.

Israel’s ex-president Moshe Katsav guilty of rape

Israel’s former President, Moshe Katsav, (centre) is seen inside the Tel Aviv District Court as the verdict on rape and other charges of sexual misconduct against him is handed down on December 30, 2010

Former Israeli President Moshe Katsav was found guilty of rape and other sex crimes yesterday, in what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called a sad day for the Jewish state.

Katsav, who could now face years in prison, had denied charges he twice raped an aide when he was a cabinet minister in the late 1990s, and molested or sexually harassed two other women who worked for him during his 2000-2007 term as president.

But a three-judge panel said his testimony had been “riddled with lies.”



“When a woman says no, she means no,” the panel said in its ruling.

Katsav was also convicted of obstructing justice, for trying to confer with one complainant about her testimony to police.

The ashen-faced 65-year-old had no comment for reporters as he was spirited out of Tel Aviv District Court by a scrum of relatives, attorneys and bodyguards.

One of his lawyers, Avigdor Feldman, criticised the unanimous verdict for ignoring “all of the doubts” about the women’s accounts and said Katsav planned to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court.

State Attorney Moshe Lador praised Israel’s legal system, saying that few countries would have prosecuted their head of state for such crimes. “Positions of power cannot grant immunity to criminals, however senior they may be,” he said.

“This is a sad day for the state of Israel and its residents,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the right-wing Likud party of which Katsav is a veteran member, said in a statement after the verdict.

“Today the court conveyed two clear-cut messages, that all are equal before the law and that every woman has exclusive rights to her body,” Netanyahu said.

Rape carries a minimum prison term of four years and a maximum of 16 years in Israel. Moshe Negbi, legal analyst for Israel Radio, told Reuters any sentences handed down to Katsav for the lesser charges would probably be served concurrently.

DISGRACE

Though the scandal had forced Katsav’s early retirement in disgrace, it had little impact on Israeli government functions, as the presidency is largely ceremonial.

But the allegations against the Iranian-born leader, whose rise from the slums once served as a shining example for disadvantaged Jewish immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa, stirred deep emotions in Israel, where the elite has traditionally been of European descent.

The verdict was dubbed an “earthquake” by one Israeli newspaper and welcomed by women’s groups that have long complained of lax attitudes to sexual harassment in workplaces.

Katsav, who is religiously observant, had cast himself as the victim of extortion and an ethnically-motivated “witch hunt.” Relatives said he would campaign to clear his name.

“This trial, where the judges rule according to their feelings, is not in keeping the ethics of Israel,” Katsav’s son Boaz told reporters.

“God willing, the whole nation will know that dad, the eighth president of the State of Israel, is innocent.”

Out of concern for the complainants’ privacy, much of the trial had taken place behind closed doors. Some commentators predict Katsav, should he appeal, will argue that the Tel Aviv District Court proceedings were not transparent enough.

Katsav immigrated with his family to Israel in 1951. At the age of 24 he became the country’s youngest mayor and went on to hold a number of Likud cabinet posts.

Parliament elected him president in 2000 in a surprise victory over Shimon Peres, Israel’s Nobel Peace Prize-winning elder statesman. Peres succeeded Katsav as president, an appointment observers say has restored dignity to the post.

The eruption of the Katsav affair had amplified corruption scandals that brought down Israel’s then premier, Ehud Olmert.

Hosting Olmert in Moscow in late 2006, Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president at the time, quipped before TV cameras that Katsav “didn’t look like a guy who could be with 10 women.”

'Depraved' gang leader who forced 91-year-old woman to perform sex act on her elderly carer is jailed indefinitely

A depraved gang leader who filmed himself humiliating a 91-year-old woman and her carer at knife-point has been jailed indefinitely for an attack that filled a judge with 'utter revulsion'.

Michael Lewis, 21, who led the Brixton Hill Blood gang in south London, is believed to have made the film as a 'trophy' to show other members.

The fiend broke into the 91-year-old woman's flat and filmed her carrying out sex acts with her elderly carer before cutting the phone line and threatening to return if they called the police.

Lewis, known as 'Joker 187 General' - 187 being the code for murder in the US - will serve at least eight years before he can be considered for parole after being branded a 'danger to the public'.

Sentencing him at Inner London Crown Court, Judge Roger Chapple described the case as one of the most 'sickening and harrowing' he had ever heard.

He said: 'It demonstrates that there are no limits to the depths of depravity that some will descend to.

'The reasons for your behaviour are to me entirely unfathomable.

'The ordeal suffered at your hands by these two women has properly been described as horrific.

'The emotional scars you have inflicted upon them are deep and permanent.

'I am faced with a defendant who, for no reason I can begin to understand, has committed behaviour of the utmost gravity.

'You were not affected by drink or drugs and have no disability.

'What you did fills me with utter revulsion.

'Having behaved in this way, there is a significant risk you will do so again and do serious harm to your next victim.'
Earlier Gillian Etherton, prosecuting, told Inner London Crown Court he had caused 'shock, terror and humiliation'.

'Through physical force, controlled aggression and at knifepoint he forced the younger woman to perform a number of degrading and humiliating sexual acts,' she said.

'He further terrified the two women by cutting the phone line and threatening to kill them a number of times.'

She said the carer had tried to fend Lewis off when he first barged in.

'She tried to push the door shut but he was too strong,' she said. 'He got behind her, grabbed her shoulders and as if he knew where she was going, forced her towards her friend's front door.'

He ordered: 'Don't scream. Open the door.'

They went into the resident's room and found her sitting on her bed. She told him to get out but Lewis growled: 'Tell her to be quiet, or I'll hurt you.'

The carer did as she was told and he assaulted her as the older woman continued to scream.

He warned: 'Tell her to stop, because for me killing is no fear.'

The carer led him to a jar containing £100 hoping to end their ordeal but Lewis, who continues to deny his involvement, kept going.

The attacks - captured on his phone - continued for several more minutes while the courageous older woman tried to fight him off with her walking stick.

'Her carer was shaking so much she could not stand,' Miss Etherton added.

He eventually returned his blade to his waistband and fled, warning: 'No police or I'll be back.' He stole money and the carer's mobile phone.

The shell-shocked carer began writing down an account of what had happened, before finishing her chores and handing over to the next helper.

She went home and took two baths but said nothing to her husband and continued with her own household duties.

The following day she went to the police but only to try and stop an attack on someone else.

She described Lewis' hunched stance and DNA tests on a body hair found stuck to some carpet tape led officers to him.

Mobile cell site evidence and CCTV from a nearby takeaway also suggested he had been very near the scene that night.

Paul Raudnitz, defending, said Lewis had a 'troubled and difficult' upbringing with a 'violent' father and a mother jailed for 12 years for drug trafficking when he was just 12. He worked occasionally as a security guard at music festivals.

Lewis, of Vauxhall, south-west London, was found guilty of false imprisonment, false imprisonment with intent to commit a sexual offence, robbery, sexual assault, causing a person to engage in sexual activity without consent, assault by penetration and making threats to kill.

The women have not been named.

Cult leader who styled himself 'Black Jesus' convicted of raping young 'flower girls'

A cult leader known as 'Black Jesus' has been found guilty of raping young 'flower girls' belonging to his Papua New Guinea sect.

Steven Tari, 38, avoided a murder charge even though villigers claimed he had sacrificed at least three of the girls and drunk their blood.

The Lutheran pastor's first hit the headlines when he was captured in 2007 after eluding police for more than a year by moving from village to village in the Transgogol area of Madang province.

Guilty: Steven Tari (pictured) has been convicted by a court in Madang of four counts of rape




Tari had thousands of village followers, including a core of armed warriors to protect him, in what is commonly referred to in PNG as a 'cargo cult'.

As part of his 'culture ministry' Tari preached the young girls were to be married to him as it was God's prophecy.

One woman told police that she was present when Tari killed her young daughter by slitting her throat after which he drank her blood.

Interviewed in Madang's Boen Prison a year later after his dramatic capture, Tari defended his practice in the black arts and of sleeping with young girls who joined his cult, admitting that 'I got plenty - 430 girls'.

But he added: 'What I did is under and in line with my religion. It was religious and was not wrong.'

But when Tari appeared before Judge David Cannings this week he was convicted on four rape charges.

He will be sentenced later this month and police said they expected him to receive a long term in jail.

Tari had gathered more than six thousand 'disciples' as he travelled through villages in jungle-clad mountains,.

He dressed in long white robes and stood on boulders declaring that he was the modern Jesus.

But when word spread that he had sacrificed three young women, drinking their blood and eating part of their flesh as part of his bizarre ceremonies, the devotion of his followers began to turn to fear.

Added to concerns were claims by the relatives of a mother who was said to have fallen under his spell and drank her own daughter's blood.

A Mail investigation in the remote villages of Papua New Guinea heard claims from relatives of 13-year-old Rita Hemen that she had been stripped naked, tied to a crude bed and raped by Tari before having her throat cut.

Her relatives said her blood had been drained into a coconut shell and drunk by Tari and his evil henchmen - and in a final horrific act they had eaten strips of her flesh.

Tari's wickedness came to an end when he reached the village of Matepi, where he was overpowered while sleeping in a hut.

A church pastor, Paul Makura, said it had been difficult for police to catch Tari as he never stayed long in one place.

'When he came here we heard that he had killed young women so we put a plan into action. We encouraged him to stay on and when he went to a hut to rest a group of eight villagers broke in, pounced on him and tied him up.'

Heavily armed police who made their way to Matepi found Tari tied to a tree. There was no sign of his bow-and-arrow-carrying bodyguards who, on a previous occasion, had engaged in a fight to the death with police.

Tari was still in possession of what he called his 'magic rod' - a knife - and a battered Bible, many of the teachings of which he had denied in his own sermons.

A spokesman for the Lutheran church, which is strongly represented in Papua New Guinea, said: 'We hope that the passage of time will erase memories of what this evil man has done.'