A Nepalese court convicted a Canadian orphanage volunteer on Sunday of sexually abusing a 15-year-old disabled boy and sentenced him to seven years in prison, an official said. Ernest Fenwick MacIntosh, 71, arrived in the Himalayan nation on a tourist visa last August and approached the Jesuit-run St Xavier's Social Service Center for homeless children with an offer of donations.
A court statement released after his conviction said MacIntosh repeatedly molested the boy, who has only one arm and was living in the orphanage, after offering him gifts and money and promising to pay for a prosthetic arm. "He has been proven guilty and sentenced to seven years in jail... the boy's testimony and results of a polygraph test provided strong evidence against him," court spokesman Kaushaleshwor Gyawali told AFP.
Police arrested MacIntosh after the boy filed a complaint on December 19.
MacIntosh has also been ordered to pay $10,000 in compensation to the victim. The case underscores problems facing Nepal's orphanages, some of which have been hit by allegations of sexual abuse, corruption and fraud in recent years.
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