(17 October) A 17 year old monk novice has confessed to murdering the monk abbot who sexually abused him in the temple and delayed the payment he was promised for his ′service?.
The novice, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was arrested in Sam Chai district, Kalasin province.
However, the murderer did not steal any belongings from the abbot, leading the police to believe the culprit was someone close to Pra Kru Indra, who had committed the crime for personal motives.
Further investigation suggested that the murderer is a monk novice who recently ran away from the temple. The arrest warrant was issued, and today the police arrested the suspect at nearby Wat Na-Doon Temple.
The police also found a blood-stained wooden staff, which is believed to have been the weapon of the crime.
The monk novice confessed to the crime, and was promptly defrocked.
The former novice told the police that he had met Pra Kru Indra earlier this year. The elderly monk then persuaded the suspect to visit to his residence, the suspect claimed, and asked to have sexual intercourse in exchange for 300 – 500 THB cash.
As their relationship developed, Pra Kru Indra started to refuse to pay the novice, according to the defrocked novice. The suspect then reportedly started to avoid the abbot.
The two allegedly had sexual intercourse again until the novice asked for the money to leave. However, the abbot reportedly refused and told the novice to carry on.
Upset, the novice tried to leave the scene, but the abbot followed and threatened that the novice’s ecclesiastical I.D. was kept with him, according to the suspect. He said he became enraged and smashed the abbot on the head several times with a wooden staff before he fled the scene.
Police have pressed murder charges against the 17-year-old suspect.
Investigation conducted by the police also claimed that Pra Kru Indra had avoided associating with local parishioners as he preferred to travel to different temples in order to lure their novices back to his temple residence for sexual intercourse.
The abbot had once organised a summer novice ordination program, placing 10 boys into the novicehood, according to the police, and many of them complained to their parents that they had been sexually abused by the abbot, but no legal action was ever taken against Pra Kru Indra.
Monks are forbidden from engaging in sexual intercourse regardless of any gender according to Buddhist dogma.
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