THAILAND
Telegraph (UK)
Two Buddhist monks who allegedly organised acts of child sexual abuse have been arrested by Thai police, the latest controversy to hit a clergy struggling with challenges to its clean-living image.
By Hannah Strange, agencies5:01PM BST 19 Jun 2013
Police in Chang Mai, in northern Thailand, said they had detained two monks for procuring a 14-year-old boy to perform sexual acts with an abbot. The alleged perpetrator was to be arrested as soon as a warrant was obtained, they said.
The pair, who deny any knowledge of the alleged abuse, could face up to 15 years in prison if convicted, Police Colonel Wirachon Bunthawi told AFP from the northern city of Chiang Mai.
The police said the arrests were made on the basis of accounts from a driver and the victim himself, who claimed the two monks had taken him to see the abbot at the temple in Chiang Dao district several times since February.
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