Report of orang utan sexually assaulted by zoo employee a hoax

The fake report used a photo of a man and an orang utan to illustrate the news of a Surabaya zoo keeper who had purportedly impregnated an orangutan named Marylin.

JAKARTA: A report claiming that an employee of the Surabaya Zoo sexually assaulted an orang utan, resulting in the alleged victim's pregnancy, is a hoax, the zoo’s chief has confirmed. 

Zoo chief Heri Purwanto debunked the report by the World News Daily Network on Saturday, saying that the zoo was not housing an orang utan named Marilyn and that the named officials were not employees of the zoo.

"Everything in the news report is false. We don’t have an orang utan named Marilyn or a director named Abdoel Hakim," Heri said, as quoted by tribunnews.com on Saturday.

Heri said that the zoo currently had two directors, acting executive director Aschta Mita Tajudin and financial and human resources development director Fuad Hasan.

He added that the zoo’s human resources department had compared its data with that of the report after the news circulated. 

"I can ensure that this is only an individual’s attempt to defame the zoo," he asserted.

The news report claimed that a 38-year-old Surabaya zookeeper was caught and convicted of committing sexual assault against animals and impregnated an orang utan. The report also said that the events had been recorded on CCTV. – The Jakarta Post/Asia News Network