Australian Tourist Jailed for Gay Sex in Fiji
Gay.com
U.K., April 7, 2005
By Ben Townley
SUMMARY: An Australian tourist has been sentenced to
two years in jail for having consensual sex with another man while on vacation
in Fiji, where homosexual acts are illegal.
An Australian tourist has been jailed for having sex with
another man while on holiday in Fiji.
Thomas Maxwell McCoskar, 55, was sentenced to two years
in jail for having sex with Dhirendra Nadan, 23, with a court claiming he had
brought shame to the country.
According to the Fiji Times, Magistrate Syed Muhktar Shah
doled out the sentence, despite pleas for leniency from the men.
He accused the couple of taking part in “shameful
acts,” adding that their crime was “something so disgusting that it would
make any decent person vomit.”
McCoskar told the court he had retired from his lecturer
job and was planning to relax on his holiday, where he met Nadan, who has
threatened to commit suicide should he be sent to prison.
The pair were accused of having sex in the Nadi area.
Homosexuality is still illegal in Fiji. The judge in the
case said the tourist should now serve his sentence for the acts, despite
homosexuality being relatively accepted in Australia.
“If you wanted to have fun, you should have stayed in
Australia instead of trying to come to Fiji and exploit our young boys,” the
newspaper reports him as saying. “With you being a former lecturer, you
should have known that such indecent acts are illegal.”
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