Canadian teacher Neil Bantleman holds his coffee inside a cell room after his trial at the South Jakarta court in Jakarta on December 2, 2014.ADEK BERRY/AFP / Getty Images
The family of a Canadian teacher imprisoned in Indonesia on much criticized child-abuse convictions is hoping a related ruling from a court in the neighbouring country of Singapore will help his case.
Neil Bantleman is currently serving a 10-year sentence after an Indonesian court found him and a co-worker guilty of abusing children at the elite international school that employed them.
Bantleman's brother says the mother of one of the alleged victims levelled many of her accusations at the start of the case in the form of emails, text messages and other digital communication sent from Singapore.
As a result, Guy Bantleman says his brother, his co-worker and their employer filed a defamation lawsuit against the woman in Singapore.
He says the court found that accusations of sexual abuse levelled by the mother regarding her son could not be proven and found that the mother had defamed the men.
Guy Bantleman says he hopes the courts in Indonesia take note of what the Singapore case found.
Neil Bantleman filed an appeal of his Indonesian convictions and a ruling on that case is expected in the coming weeks.