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Beneath
the brown cassocks From the very day the group set foot in the village, the villagers began to suspect the group's activities. Their relentless investigations led to a shocking exposure - the three men in brown cassocks were alleged paedophiles who not only sexually abused children but also posted their sex act pictures and video clips on the Internet. The leader of this group is now in remand custody while the other two have been released after police recorded their statements. We met the owner of the house where the group found shelter. "A neighbour introduced the three men to me saying they want to rent one of my houses. There were about five boys with them. We had two houses. My brother and I lived in one house and we wanted to let the other house. My other family members lived in Italy. So we gave the house to the three brothers. "It is my brother who had made the tenancy deal with the 'brothers' and didn't question them since they appeared to be Christian. After a few days, my brother also left for Italy and I moved to Negombo, giving the house in which we were living also to the three men on rent," the youth who identified himself as Nalaka said. As days went by, the villagers became more and more curious while the number of children at the so-called missionary house also increased. There were 11 children. Ten Tamil boys and a Sinhala boy. The neighbours first called Nalaka and complained. They told him about their suspicions. Nalaka visited the village and met the 'brothers'. He said he warned the brothers that he would have to evict them if he found out that the allegations were true. He said he asked them about the foul smell that emanated from the backyard of the house and about the children's presence. The brothers had dsimissed the allegations and promised to keep the place clean. They said the foul smell was from the small farm they ran in the backyard. Neighbours had seen ducks, pigeons, chickens and pigs in the backyard farm where the children worked. The villagers had also complained to Parish priest Lawrence Perera. When Fr. Perera learnt about the Tamil-speaking boys living in a house with three strange men who called themselves Franciscan brothers he got into action and launched his own investigation. He contacted the Church superiors and inquired about the presence of the group in his parish. When Fr. Perera was told that the Church hierarchy knew nothing about the group, he wrote to the group's leader, M. A. Don Jayalath. In a reply, Don Jayalath said he was the head of a new Order called the "Fourth Order of Destitute Franciscans". "We learned about his background through the documents he had attached to his explanation letter to me. He was at a seminary in Badulla and did not receive his ordination and was asked to leave by the former Badulla Bishop. However, he claimed he was ordained at a secret ceremony by a former Bishop of Badulla. He claimed he had a video cassette to proove his ordination," Fr. Perera said. The parish priest then contacted the Mannar Bishop whose inquiries revealed that Don Jayalath was a frequent visitor to Mannar on preaching missions and had taken away children from a refugee camp. The bishop then sent an emissary to Katana and rescued the Mannar children. He then contacted the National Child Protection Authority to lodge a complaint. The group, apparently aware that there could be a raid at any moment, executed its exit strategy. The 'brothers' had hurriedly loaded their belongings to their lorry and left their homes, taking along with them the only remaining boy. A few residents who followed the lorry in a vehicle said they saw Don Jayalath, who was referred to by the other two men in the group as 'the Chief', removing his cassock before he left the vehicle and entered the Negombo station to board a Colombo-bound train. The other two men and the boy had returned to the mission house, only to be apprehended by National Child Protection Authority sleuths. It was just past midnight on October 16. The police then got one of the men to call their chief and coerced him to say that their vehicle had collided with an army vehicle and the soldiers were refusing to let them go. The police strategy worked. Don Jayalath arrived at Koppara Handiya at Katana and was arrested around 3.30 a.m. During the course of interrogation, Don Jayalath suffered a heart attack, apparently due to an overdose of tablets he was taking for high-blood pressure. He was admitted to the Jayawardhanapura Hospital. After he recovered, he was produced before the Colombo Magistrate who ordered that he be remanded till October 29. He is being treated at the National Hospital under prison guard. NCPA Chief Professor Harendra de Silva said they had located 10 children and recorded their statements as well. According to NCPA investigations, all but two boys had been sexually abused. The two boys had been spared because they were newcomers. After the arrest of Don Jayalath, the villagers began to put the pieces together to solve the mission-house mystery. They said they had heard someone shouting "left, right, left, right" in the mornings, probably to make the neighbours believe that the children were doing physical training. One neighbour said that all the children looked scared every time they caught a glimpse of them. "One day, a boy of about 16 years hid behind a shed. We began to wonder why he acted in this manner. It aroused our suspicion. We also noticed that none of the children looked happy," he said. Another neighbour said the men would leave the house around 8 in the night and return around midnight, sometimes with other men who were dressed in similar cassocks. "They all had their hair shaved off at the crown of their heads and allowed it to grow longer on the sides," she said adding that she once saw girls of 10-12 years of age in the farm. The only Sinhala boy who remained with the group had told the villagers and the sleuths that they were shown pornographic movies and were sexually abused by the men. The mission house was sans any of its religious objects when we went there. Neighbours said the two houses were filled with many statues of Mary. What remained on Tuesday was what they chose to leave behind or tried to destroy. Police found 42 porn CDs and a computer with Internet access. Police believe that the men had sold the pictures on the Internet. Strewn across the floor were pictures of underaged girls in Salwaris. Among the other items were negatives of photographs, a diary, a few children's notebooks, crudely-made exercise equipment, paper cuttings on yoga and body building, a computer text book, pictures, a bag of rice and a bottle of garlic. Also found was medicine: Mefenamic Acid (a pain killer), Loscar (a pill taken to control blood pressure), and Vitamin C and B pills. The police developed the negatives. They were pictures of a strange ordaining ceremony involving a few young men, who were dressed in cassocks and had their crowns shaved with longer hair on the side. One of the children's exercise books included a timetable, written in Tamil. According to this time table, they got up at 5.45 a.m. and they prayed four times a day – early morning, mid day, evening and night. They meditated between 3 and 4 p.m., played between 10.30 and 11.30 in the morning and 4.30 to 5.30 in the evening and were given their three meals at specific times. The timetable also said they should work for one hour a day in the farm and study between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. Bedtime was 10 p.m. The time period from 10 p.m. to 5.45 a.m. had been marked as 'silence'. The book also contained passages where a child had written paragraphs of a Sinhala statement in Tamil. Residents claimed that after the house was raided, they took the Sinhala boy to a side and questioned him. "The boy revealed that the boys were asked to engage in 'same sex' activities while another 'brother' videoed them," one resident said. The boy was now in the protection of the NCPA. Some residents claimed there had been more Sinhala children. Parish priest Perera says he belives that the person who led this group was mentally unstable. He praised the timely action taken by the neighbours, the Bishop and the NCPA."The group could have abused children of the area too. They were wearing cassocks, they could easily mislead people. I think the man is a definite danger to the Catholic Church," Fr. Perera said. Father Neil Fernando, Provincial Superior of the Franciscan Brothers in Bolawalana, Negombo, said that "in the history of the Franciscans, there was no fourth order. "He has created one on his own,” he said. |
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