Court upholds death sentence for Java teacher who raped 13 students

Herry Wirawan (centre) attending his trial at a court in Bandung, West Java, on Feb. 15, 2022. - AFP

JAKARTA (The Jakarta Post/Asia News Network): The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal and upheld the death sentence handed down to an Islamic boarding school teacher who had raped 13 of his students, bringing an end to a case that had drawn national attention to sexual abuse in the country’s religious boarding schools.

Herry Wirawan, who taught at his own Islamic boarding school in West Java, had previously been found guilty of raping the female students between 2016 and 2021, all of whom were minors at the time, and impregnating at least eight of them.