Give Us Ten Buffalo Or Face Three Months In Prison, Malaysian Chief Tells Tourists

Nowhere to hide: Malaysian police escort one of the tourists
suspected of taking nude photos of themselves on Mount Kinabalu at Kota
Kinabalu courthouse

A Malaysian tribal chief has called on Western tourists who
were arrested for stripping naked on top of a mountain to pay a fine of ten
buffalo or face jail, it has been reported.

Former British public schoolgirl Eleanor Hawkins is among
the group accused of ‘upsetting the gods’ by posing nude on the country’s
highest peak days before an earthquake killed 18 climbers on the mountain.

Media crowd outside the courthouse to talk to the tourists
who are believed to be among a group of 10 people who undressed and posed for
photos on Mount Kinabalu

Eleanor, 24, from Derby, was detained at a Sabah airport
yesterday while trying to fly to Kuala Lumpur.

Last night it was reported that one local tribal chief had
called on the tourists to pay a ‘sogit’ or fine of ten buffalo or face jail.

Priest Tindarama Aman Sirom Simbuna said: ‘The tourists who
angered the guardian of the mountain should pay for their mistakes by giving
sogit. This should be in the form of ten male or female buffalo’.

Indigenous people say Mount Kinabalu – where the group posed
for their photo – is a resting place for the spirits of the departed.

Miss Hawkins, an aerospace engineering student, is said to
be ‘very upset’ as she sits in a police cell in Borneo facing obscenity
charges, which can carry a three-month prison sentence.

Her father, Tim Hawkins, who runs an engineering business in
Derby, said his daughter sounded frightened when he spoke to her this morning.

He said: ‘She is obviously upset. She’s pretty scared. But
it was good to speak to her.’

He has appealed for the Malaysian authorities to be fair
over fears they may try to make an example of her.

Others also facing same charges with her are; a Canadian,
Lindsey Petersen, 22, and his sister, Danielle, 23, and a 23-year-old Dutch
man, Dylan Snel.