Battle to free British care worker in Brazil
Friends and admirers fight to overturn sex abuse conviction of orphanage founder

Alex Bellos in Planaltina de Goias
Wednesday December 11, 2002
The Guardian

An international campaign to free a Briton sentenced to 46 years in jail in Brazil has been launched after claims he was framed for sexually abusing children.
Craig Alden, 33, ran an orphanage for street children in Planaltina de Goias, which was hailed as a model philanthropic project in the developing world. Speaking from his cell in Planaltina, 40 miles from Brasilia, he said he was the victim of a vendetta after refusing to kowtow to corrupt and unprofessional local authorities.
" I've been very naive," he said. "I now realise how easy it is here for Brazilians to wind a foreigner round their little finger."
Prominent members of the international diplomatic community in Brasilia believe he is innocent and are campaigning for his release. The British pressure group Fair Trials Abroad has taken up the case. Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, Brazil's secretary of state for human rights, has also said he will send a representative to Planaltina to investigate the situation.
Alden, from Warboys in Cambridgeshire, founded and ran Abrigo Warboys Brazil, which has looked after more than 400 children over 13 years.
He was taken into custody on July 1 and convicted last month on charges of abusing five children. The only evidence of the crime was the alleged victims' testimony. Two of the boys later retracted their statements - one by letter and one in court - although this evidence was dismissed by the sentencing judge.
" At the very least all this contradictory evidence shows that there is a reasonable doubt in the accusations," said Aldo de Campos Costa, Alden's lawyer. "There have been problems right from the start with the way the attorney and the police have handled this case."
Mr Costa said the accusations stemmed from a former resident of the orphanage, who was expelled by Alden and spread made-up stories in revenge. "You have to bear in mind that these youngsters were brought up living on the streets - with no direction, no family, no future - their minds are very open to suggestion."
This week in Planaltina, a poor dormitory town of Brasilia with a population of 80,000, the Guardian met one of the prosecution's main witnesses, Maria Luiza Souza e Silva, a former vice-president of the orphanage.
In court she made leading comments about Alden's sexuality and about the possibility of his having relations with the children in his care. But when asked this week if she had ever seen anything that would lead her to believe that he was sexually abusing any of the children, she said: "I never noticed anything that would suggest [this]. In my heart I don't believe [that he is guilty]."

Invented
The Guardian also spoke to Daniel, 17, who has lived in the orphanage for the past 10 years."In my opinion a lot of the stories were invented," he said. "I was surprised when the stories of sexual abuse emerged. I think he has been wronged."
Rosamund Bowles, who is married to the British defence attache to Brazil and is coordinating the campaign to reopen Alden's case, said: "I am convinced that he is innocent. I have known Craig for four years. There is not one shred of evidence against him. The boys who made the allegations are not socially well adjusted. I can see why they would lie."
Alden has spent all his adult life involved in social projects. He became interested in volunteer work as a teenager and travelled first to Peru and then to Brazil to help build an orphanage in Ceilandia, another of Brasilia's poor satellite cities.
" When I was there I saw a kid shot in the street," he said. "He was blown apart and didn't survive. "I decided there and then that I wanted to do something to help street kids."
He raised money and in 1989 paid £1,200 for land in Planaltina de Goias. He started building the orphanage and, after dividing his time between Britain and Brazil, moved to Planaltina in 1994.
He built the home from scratch into a large complex comprising five houses, a farm with five cows, six sheep and 300 chickens, and catering for 53 children. It has received support from Unesco, Rotary International and the British and American communities in Brazil.
For several years the orphanage was the only one in Planaltina. Alden said relations with local authorities had grown tense as they continually tried to "dump" children with him, even though he did not have the resources to cope.
Alden's case has been hindered by problems with his lawyers. He sacked his first lawyer, and a second was dismissed for failing to attend his defence hearing. She is also facing legal action for allegedly bribing witnesses in the case.
His third set of lawyers believe that in addition to the merits of his case, there are several legal and constitutional reasons why the conviction should be set aside.

Protection
But the Planaltina prosecutor, Maria Aparecida Nunes Amorim, said she was scrupulous in preparing her case. "For years I've been hearing about [sexual abuse] at the orphanage," she said. "Our job is to work for the protection of the children."
In addition to the sex abuse charges, Alden was given for two years after being convicted of mistreating one boy and supplying children with alcohol.
The aid worker has a Brazilian wife, from whom he is separated but on friendly terms, and a seven-year-old son.
For several years the British charity Gap, which arranges work for gap year students, has sent volunteers to Warboys. Ed Box, now a 19-year-old psychology student at Warwick University, was one of two Britons who spent five months at Warboys.
" We got to know Craig very well and there is no way that he would have done anything to the children there," he said. "If something was wrong we would have noticed. The kids were so happy and so affectionate towards him.
" The whole thing is an incredible injustice. It is a disaster for a man who has done so much for street children and a disaster for the children under his care. It is a complete set-up by corrupt members of a horrible town. "

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