Children champion haunted by sex scandals

[dropcap]H[/dropcap]ans Vriens Egon Deiter, who runs orphanages in Kenya, is learning to his regret that sex is very hard to shake off. Two women who claim to have been molested many years ago in the Netherlands by Deiter, now facing paedophile charges in Kenya, flew in all the way to come and testify against their fellow Dutch, whose case was coming up for hearing on Friday.

Eustacia and her cousin Suzana, both 35, reportedly arrived Monday ready to testify against Hans Vriens Egon Dieter, now 66, at the Milimani Law Courts in Nairobi. Unfortunately, however, the case was postponed to 23^rd April.

According to reports, Deiter was convicted and jailed for two and a half years in the Netherlands after he was found guilty of molesting six minors. At least 182 complaints were filed against him in his home country alone.

Deiter later relocated to Kenya and opened a series of orphanages, where investigators say he continued defiling minors. The two Dutch women even confronted him physically in Roysambu.

But Deiter was unfazed.  “Let me share with my lawyer about the matter and he will get back to you,” he told them.

At Deiter’s Kitui home managed by his wife, Racheal, there were minors in his custody who Eustacia fear may be undergoing “hard life” at Dieter’s orphanage.  But in this area, Deiter is a “good man” seen as a savior for destitute children. Residents praise his charity working of rehabilitating street children.

Racheal, his wife, appears to know either just the good side of him or she’s being economic with the truth.

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Deiter is even constructing a two-storey house in Kitui, an indication that he’s not leaving Kenya anytime soon. “I knew Hans must have had a family back in his motherland and he had told me as much, but I didn’t imagine he could be linked to such offences as I’ve never seen him behave suspiciously,” Racheal, who has a seven-year-old girl with him, says.

It is not clear how Dieter left the Netherlands for Kenya, but police say he could have been using a fake passport. His first arrest in Kenya on sex-related charges was in 2002, when he was arraigned in court for allegedly defiling three minors aged between 12 and 15 years in Donholm Estate in Nairobi.

Deiter was later released on a police bond but still faced accusations of defiling three minors aged eight, nine and 10 years in 2016. He would later disappear until November 1, 2018, when the police arrested him at his house in Roysambu estate.

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