Islamic Leaders want South African Paedophile Arrested
By The COAST Reporter
Email, thecoastnewspaper@gmail.com
Malindi islamic leaders have asked the government to arrest a suspected South African paedophile who has gone missing after two of his alleged accomplices were arrested and arraigned court over a week ago.
They want the government to involve the international police (Interpol) to track the suspect, Michael Ballantine, who fled the country to escape the wrath of enraged villagers at Casuarina area of the town.
At the same time, the leaders urged parents and the society at large to be vigilant to prevent foreigners who come to the country as tourists only to indulge in immoral businesses.
The clerics, who spoke at a Malindi hotel on September 5, 2024, condemned unscrupulous people who liaise with foreigners to entire and lure children as young as three years with sweets and other goodies to exploit them sexually.
“It is painful that our children have become playthings to unscrupulous foreigners who collude with locals to lure the children to them for financial gain and as Muslim leaders, we condemn this vice with the strongest terms possible,” said Abu Qatada, a Muslim cleric.
He said the incident involving the South African and two women was just a tip of the iceberg saying the practice was gaining currency in the town and Kilifi County at large where locals work with foreigners to lure girls and boys as an income-generating activities.
A Kilifi anti-narcotic drugs activist Famau Mohamed Famau echoed Qatada’s sentiments warning that Muslim leaders would not sit back and watch moral decay being perpetrarted in the region for financial gains.
He told parents to keep watch and monitor their children so as to ensure they were always at the right places to protect them from social misfits preying on their innocence.
“Those who have such tendencies should stop. Let them concentrate on doing what brought them in Kenya and stop involving themselves in uncouth behaviour against our children.”
He asked the government to seek and apprehend perpetrators of such heinous acts against children.
“If he is in Kenya, let him be arrested and arraigned in court and if he has left the country, the government must pursue him wherever he is!!!.”
Mohaed Dadar, a political activist, urged members of the society to report any crime against children, especially against harmful practices like paedophilia.
Zulfa Yusuf said reports of young children between three and six years being lured to sexually abused had greatly hurt Malindi residents calling on the government to deal ruthlessly with children molesters.
This comes in the wake of the arrest of two women, one of them a 17-year-old girl, who were arraigned in a Malindi court to answer charges of luring three children to the residence of the South African on the run.
