Authorities say that a cruise ship attendant has confessed to raping a female passenger and he tried to throw the woman overboard.
Ketut Pujayasa, 28, of Indonesia, sexually assaulted a 31-year-old woman while the ship was in international waters, according to the criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, reports CNN. The woman was not identified and authorities did say that he confessed to the crime, which happened on Holland America's ms Nieuw Amsterdam.
Pujayasa claimed that the altercation began when he tried to deliver her breakfast. He knocked three times and the woman still ignored him. Outside, he heard a woman yell “Wait a minute, son of a b**ch!” She opened the door and he gave her the food.
He later went back to the room to confront her, but she didn’t answer the door. So, he searched the deck “in order to punch her in the face for insulting him that morning,” according to the complaint. He couldn’t confront her there, since there were too many people.
That night, he went to her room and entered using the master key. According to Reuters, he used a laptop to beat her and tried to choke her with a curling iron cord. The woman fought back, biting him and using a corkscrew to stab him. When the fight moved to the balcony, Pujayasa allegedly tried to throw her overboard. The complaint notes that there is footage of Pujayasa escaping, half naked.
The woman suffered severe injuries and was airlifted to a Florida hospital the next day. HEr current status is unknown. The ship left Fort Lauderdale on Feb. 9 and was set to dock in Honduras.
“At Holland America Line, the safety of our guests is our highest priority, and we are shocked and deeply saddened by this incident,” CEO Stein Kruse said. “To our knowledge, no incident like this has occurred in our company's 140-year history.”