Man accused of molesting over 300 kids and beat those who refused to have sex with him kills himself in prison
A French man has killed himself in prison after being arrested in Indonesia for allegedly molesting more than 300 children and also beating those who refused to have sex with him. Francois Camille Abello, who faced death by firing squad, was found on Thursday, July 9, unresponsive inside his cell at a detention center in Jakarta, said a police spokesman.
“After three days of treatment, he was pronounced dead,” spokesman Yusri Yunus said on Monday, July 13. An official at National Police Hospital in Jakarta said the doctors informed that the 65-year-old had a neck fracture and the injury blocked the supply of oxygen. Abello was arrested in June from a hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia, where two minor girls were also found in his room. The retiree was presented in handcuffs wearing an orange prison shirt and black facemask at a police press conference last Thursday. The officials said they found videos of child sex abuse on Abello's laptop that showed him sexually abusing hundreds of kids aged between 10 and 17.
Police also revealed that the man came to Indonesia on a tourist visa several times in the last five years and used to lure minors with offers of work as models. The Jakarta Police Chief Nana Sudjana told reporters: “He would approach children and lure them by offering them work as models. The ones who agreed to have sex with him would get paid between 250,000 and one million rupiah ($17-70). Those who didn't want to have sex would be beaten, slapped, and kicked by the suspect." Investigators believed that there could be more victims than what is known currently.
Camille could reportedly have faced life in prison, chemical castration or even execution by firing squad if found guilty of the charges under Indonesia's child protection laws. According to a global anti-trafficking network ECPAT International, as many as 70,000 Indonesian children become victims of sexual exploitation every year across the country.
After Camille’s arrest, social media users were very happy and in support of the punishment, he would likely face. One user shared at the time, "Good. This is how we should be dealing with those kinds of people...why is America/Europe so lenient about it? Probably because many leaders are either involved or don’t think it’s ‘so bad’. Grr..." "YESS, while I wasn't for the death penalty before, I'm now very much for it, in these kinds of circumstances. No doubt whatsoever that this is the holy and moral path that we must take,” said another one, while a third added: “I could be on board for this. Can we make the other pedos watch? #KidsAreOurFuture #StopHurtingThem.”
In another incident, Jakarta police took an American fugitive, Russ Medlin, into custody for his alleged actions against children. Medlin was reportedly charged for sexually abusing a 14-year-old in the US. “[He] was charged with sexual violence against a minor twice by a district court in Nevada between 2006 and 2008, and had served two years in prison,” Yunus said. The US man reportedly met a 20-year-old woman while in Indonesia who is known to have associations with child trafficking. "[Medlin] asked A via WhatsApp to introduce him to a minor. A then introduced him to the victim, SS, who is still 15 years of age," Yunus added.