------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | New on Goanet's website's A&E section - http://www.goanet.org | | Book in Review: A Kind of Absence - João da Veiga Coutinho | | POEM: SUSEGAAD - Cynthia Gomes James | | http://www.goanet.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid!6 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Convicted Paedophile Given Catholic Burial In Goa BY SAR NEWS
PANAJI, Goa (SAR NEWS) -- Notorious paedophile Albert Freddy Peats, who served a life sentence in India, was given a Catholic burial at the St. Inez Church cemetery at Panaji, January 6. Peats, a baptised Catholic and a Eurasian according to records, died April 4, 2005, aged 81 after a paralytic attack. Jail officials in Goa had delayed the burial while they gave sufficient time for claimants to retrieve the body. As no one approached them, they decided to bury him in Panaji. “Considering that Freddy spent a long time in jail and interacted with several people, we are confident he was touched by God who is a generous forgiver,” Father Valerian Vaz, the officiating priest conducting the last rites, told the small gathering. “Let us entrust our friend Freddy into the hands of God. May God forgive all his failings and grant him eternal rest,” Father Vaz prayed while concluding, after which Peats was laid to rest in the church grave. “Peats was warm hearted and cheerful and was sorry for things and requested me to pray for God’s mercy and forgiveness before he died,” Sister Mary Jane, 63, of the congregation of Holy Family, told SAR News January 7. “Rather than staying in the prison, Peats always expressed his desire to spend the rest of his life serving in a seminary,” said Sister Jane, the Coordinator of Prison Ministry in Goa. Sister Jane was requested to organise the final rites by the Superintendent of Prisons, D J Shanke. Freddy Peats came into limelight when the decade-long sex racket he was operating from an “orphanage” at Colva, a village in South Goa, was busted. Peats was sexually exploiting orphaned children and even sold them to paedophiles abroad. He was arrested April 3, 1991, by the Margao police and charge-sheeted in 1992. However, the high court ordered that his case be handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation, India’s premier agency, after Mumbai-based child rights activist Sheela Barse complained that the local police authorities were not investigating the case seriously. Peats was finally convicted March 21, 1996. Several witnesses, including the victims, testified that Peats was involved in kidnapping children, sexually abusing them and selling them to foreign nationals. All kinds of evidence in the form of photographs, syringes used to inject the testicles of the boys and bank documents showing incriminating transactions were produced before the court. Peats, who served his sentence in the Aguada Central Jail in Goa, died at the Goa Medical College Hospital, Bambolim.
