Christian leader who styled himself 'Black Jesus' convicted of raping young 'flower girls'

The Independent (UK)

Tari had thousands of village followers, including a core of armed warriors to protect him, in what is commonly referred to in PNG as a 'cargo cult'.

As part of his 'culture ministry' Tari preached the young girls were to be married to him as it was God's prophecy.

One woman told police that she was present when Tari killed her young daughter by slitting her throat after which he drank her blood.

Interviewed in Madang's Boen Prison a year later after his dramatic capture, Tari defended his practice in the black arts and of sleeping with young girls who joined his cult, admitting that 'I got plenty - 430 girls'.

But he added: 'What I did is under and in line with my religion. It was religious and was not wrong.'

But when Tari appeared before Judge David Cannings this week he was convicted on four rape charges.

He will be sentenced later this month and police said they expected him to receive a long term in jail.

Tari had gathered more than six thousand 'disciples' as he travelled through villages in jungle-clad mountains,.

He dressed in long white robes and stood on boulders declaring that he was the modern Jesus.

But when word spread that he had sacrificed three young women, drinking their blood and eating part of their flesh as part of his bizarre ceremonies, the devotion of his followers began to turn to fear.

Added to concerns were claims by the relatives of a mother who was said to have fallen under his spell and drank her own daughter's blood.

A Mail investigation in the remote villages of Papua New Guinea heard claims from relatives of 13-year-old Rita Hemen that she had been stripped naked, tied to a crude bed and raped by Tari before having her throat cut.

Her relatives said her blood had been drained into a coconut shell and drunk by Tari and his evil henchmen - and in a final horrific act they had eaten strips of her flesh.

Tari's wickedness came to an end when he reached the village of Matepi, where he was overpowered while sleeping in a hut.

A church pastor, Paul Makura, said it had been difficult for police to catch Tari as he never stayed long in one place.

'When he came here we heard that he had killed young women so we put a plan into action. We encouraged him to stay on and when he went to a hut to rest a group of eight villagers broke in, pounced on him and tied him up.'

Heavily armed police who made their way to Matepi found Tari tied to a tree. There was no sign of his bow-and-arrow-carrying bodyguards who, on a previous occasion, had engaged in a fight to the death with police.

Tari was still in possession of what he called his 'magic rod' - a knife - and a battered Bible, many of the teachings of which he had denied in his own sermons.

A spokesman for the Lutheran church, which is strongly represented in Papua New Guinea, said: 'We hope that the passage of time will erase memories of what this evil man has done.'

Another Christian Priest accused of sex with boys

Priest Arrested in Brazil on Charges of Sexually Abusing Boy
By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO
New York Times
May 23, 2010

SÃO PAULO, Brazil — The authorities in Rio de Janeiro said Sunday that they had arrested a Polish priest and charged him with sexually abusing a 16-year-old former altar boy.

The judge who issued the arrest warrant said the priest, Father Marcin Michael Strachanowski, 44, had used his parish’s rectory as an “erotic dungeon” to carry out sex acts with boys.

The police in Rio de Janeiro State said that Father Strachanowski, who was arrested late Friday, was being held at a police station awaiting court proceedings. He is accused of handcuffing the 16-year-old to a bed “to satisfy his sexual whims,” according to state prosecutors.

It is the third case of sexual abuse involving a priest in Brazil, which has the world’s biggest Roman Catholic population, in the last two months.

In April, Msgr. Luiz Marques Barbosa, 83, and two other priests were taken into custody in northeastern Brazil and accused of abuse after a videotape surfaced of Father Barbosa having sex with a former altar boy. Also that month, in Franca, in southeastern Brazil, prosecutors charged the Rev. José Afonso with abusing altar boys ranging from 12 to 16 years old.

The Archdiocese of Rio de Janeiro has relieved Father Strachanowski of his parish duties because of the criminal investigation, said Adionel Carlos da Cunha, a church spokesman. Mr. da Cunha said that church officials had been investigating Father Strachanowski for at least two years for suspected abuses of the teenager.

The archdiocese “expresses its regret over what happened, particularly with the people involved and especially to the possible victims,” Mr. da Cunha said in a statement released Friday.

Camila Donato, a spokeswoman for Rio’s civil police, said that complaints about Father Strachanowski first surfaced in 2004. The police began a formal investigation in 2007 based on the accusations of the 16-year-old.

Prosecutors said that Father Strachanowski began sending pornographic material to the boy in e-mail messages in early 2007. About February of that year, Father Strachanowski handcuffed the teenager to a bed in the rectory and forced him to perform sex acts, according to the state prosecutors.

At one point, the priest, “using coercion, put money into the pocket of the victim and demanded silence, threatening to tell everyone what had happened,” the public prosecutor said in the criminal complaint.