Karl Joseph Kraus, accused of raping four sisters while living in South-East
Asia, appeared in court, in Thailand, on Monday.
According to charges against him, Kraus, who now
finds it difficult to walk on his own, was alleged to have attacked the girls,
aged between seven and 15, in 2010.
He was carried from a prison bus into a
wheelchair by other inmates, in order to be wheeled into the dock in Chiang Mai
province, in the north of the country.
According to Mail Online, after being arrested
and bailed on suspicion of rape, Kraus attempted to flee to Burma, from where
he was deported for not having a valid visa.
Report said his lawyers were now trying to get
the rape case dropped, arguing that he was too ill to stand trial.
Last month, he told the Sydney Morning
Telegraph, “I’ll be dead before proceedings conclude,” adding that “I’ve done
nothing wrong.”
Kraus, a German-born Australian citizen, is
suffering from an array of serious illnesses such as dementia and cancer,
according to his lawyers.
However, while free on bail he was apparently
seen driving around Chiang Mai and did not seem to be in poor health.
The former railway worker had been living in
Thailand for more than a decade when he first met the girls he was alleged to
have abused in 2008.
Thai police claimed that Kraus offered to teach
the children English, and persuaded them to visit his house by offering them
chocolate and money.
But the girls then told their parents, who, in
turn, reported Kraus to the police.
Officials allegedly found more than 100 child
pornography images on his computer, many of which had been emailed to addresses
based outside Thailand.
However, Kraus later claimed that he was told the
case would be dropped if he agreed to bribe police with a sum equivalent to
£10,000.
