Pair guilty of human trafficking, court rules
Manila: A court sentenced two Swedes to life imprisonment for operating a cybersex den that employed 17 minor Filipina models in the southern Philippines, a local paper said.
The Sun star reported that Judge Jeoffre W. Acebido of the regional trial court of Misamis Oriental, in a 25-page judgment, ruled that Bo Stefan Sederholm, 31, and Emil Andreas Solemo, 35, were guilty beyond reasonable doubt of the crime of human trafficking.
Three Filipinos who worked with the Swedes, Andrea Galdones Romero, Arvy Pablo Baylon and Aminoding Lomangcolcob Rangaig, received 20-year sentences each.
Strict action
“[The court] will not shirk from its duty to impose the most severe of penalties against anybody, be he a foreign national or a citizen of this country, who tramples upon the dignity of a woman by taking advantage of her vulnerability,” the judge who fined Sederholm and Solemo two million pesos (Dh170,726) each, while their Filipino associates were fined one million pesos each, said.
“Disrespect for Filipino women and violations of our laws deserves the strongest condemnation from this court,” said the judge in the ruling.
Justice Acebido added that the ruling should serve as a warning for foreign nationals “not [to] abuse the hospitability and protection accorded to them during their temporary stay in the country by making it a haven for their criminal activities”.
