A 75-year-old Indian-origin Maoist cult leader was on Friday found guilty of rape, child cruelty and falsely imprisoning his daughter for 30 years by a British court.
A 75-year-old Indian-origin Maoist cult leader was on Friday found guilty of rape, child cruelty and falsely imprisoning his daughter for 30 years by a British court.
Kerala-born Aravindan Balakrishnan, who led a secretive Maoist commune in south London from 1975 to 2013 after emigrating from Singapore, has been accused of raping female followers and imprisoning his own daughter for 30 years after brainwashing them into believing he was an all-powerful and all-seeing leader.
He was referred to as “Comrade Bala”.Balakrishnan, who faces life sentence when he is sentenced on Monday, was found guilty of most of the 16 charges brought against him at a Southwark Crown Court trial Friday.
He denied the charges and told the jury that he was “the focus of competition” between “jealous” women who made sexual advances on him. “There was no force involved, there was no deception involved,” he said, claiming his alleged rape victim, who cannot be named, “was extremely competitive” with another follower Sian Williams with whom he admitted having an affair in the commune.
The verdicts follow a two-year police investigation into a case which Scotland Yard detectives described as “completely unique”.Balakrishnan’s daughter, who cannot be named, spent her entire life until the age of 30 effectively imprisoned in the commune ruled by her father. She escaped with two other women from a house in Peckford Place, Brixton, sparking a police probe.
