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29 March 2024

Foreigner arrested for molesting a French tourist

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By Correspondent

After two French tourists complained that they had been sexually molested by a foreign guesthouse operator at his guest house in Sri Lanka on Friday, ‘Colombo Gazette’ on Saturday reported that he has been arrested by police.

SSP Jayantha Wickramasinghe said 44-year old Oliver Sage, who manages the “French Villa”, a beach property at Unawatuna in Galle, Southern province, would be produced before a magistrate.

“The two French tourists complained that the guest house owner used criminal force on them two days ago,” Wickramasinghe said, “We have sufficient grounds to make the arrest.”

The guest house website described him as a “Swiss-French” ex-restaurateur managing a “cozy Sri Lankan style villa”, which also offers Ayurvedic (indigenous) treatments, yoga and meditation.
it was not clear whether he had dual Swiss and French citizenship.

Wickramasinghe said that at the time of his arrest, he was carrying a French passport and he started managing the guest house after he had first arrived in Sri Lanka three years ago.

In 2006, Sri Lanka tightened laws to protect women and children from sexual harassment and he had been arrested under a penal code offense which carries a jail term of five years on conviction.

One of the victims had been subjected to medical tests and a forensic report was being prepared.

According to a police report earlier this month, it is revealed that attacks against foreign tourists visiting the island nation had been increased emerging nearly four decades of ethnic war. 

Meanwhile, ‘The Sunday Times’ of April 21 reported police as saying that frequent complaints of sexual harassment of tourists in the South are recorded, with the latest report of sexual harassment of a 32-year old female tourist by a local man who had unbecomingly touched her and pinched her buttocks while on the beach.