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Court to hear Swiss couple's
bail plea on Wednesday

The couple, William Albin Marty (58) and Loshair Lily Marty (57), were on Monday produced before a metropolitan magistrate who remanded them to judicial custody till January 22.

This is for the first time that the couple has been remanded to judicial custody. Earlier, they were confined to police custody. They are now lodged in the central prison in Bombay.

Their bail plea was rejected on December 22 on the ground that investigation was at a crucial stage and conduits through whom the couple operated had to be traced in India and other countries. The couple has now entered a fresh plea for bail.

According to police, the couple lured the kids with money, attractive clothes and free rides to perform sexual acts for the camera. The pornographic movie was then sold for a good price to people abroad, they said.

The Social Service Branch of police, which was tipped off by a Non-Government Organisation, seized several film rolls containing obscene material when it arrested the couple from a resort hotel on December 16.

The police are still looking out for the taxi driver who is alleged to have arranged for the minor kids. Interpol has also been alerted to trace the victims and find out the alleged links of the couple with persons in foreign countries engaged in pornography.

The couple have denied their involvement and defended themselves saying that in Switzerland they stripped off when they went to take bath on the beach. They also claimed to have visited India as tourists. They claimed to be innocent and said they were falsely implicated in the crime.

The couple told the court that the pornographic pictures seized by the police have been manipulated through computers to rope them in the crime.

Police have alleged that the couple visited India and neighbouring countries, such as Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, to indulge in the above mentioned offences since the last ten years.

Police have also refuted allegations of manipulating pictures through computers since records indicate the time when the pictures were shot. Hence, there was no scope for manipulation, police assert.

The police have charged the couple with various offences under the Indian Penal Code - section 342 (wrongful confinement), 347 (confinement to extort property), 354 (assault or criminal force on woman to outrage her modesty, 363 (kidnapping), 366 A (procurement of minor girl), 201 (giving false evidence to screen offender), 292 (sale of obscene books or pornographic material), 34 (common intention) and 114 (abetting the offence).

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