Cruise ship worker raped woman and tried to throw her off ship

By Chellie Cervone - Posted: Feb 20, 2014 at 9:12 pm

Photo of Ketut Pujayasa arrested for raping and nearly killing a cruise ship passenger.

Ketut Pujayasa (Photo: Broward County Sheriffs Office)

Holland American cruise ship worker raped woman, tried to throw her off ship

The latest publicized crime aboard a cruise ship occurred on Feb. 14, when a Holland American cruise worker beat, raped and nearly killed a passenger because he felt she was being disrespectful.

Ketut Pujayasa, 28, claims that he overheard the woman say, “Wait a minute, son of a bitch!” when he delivered a breakfast tray to the woman’s stateroom. Apparently he had knocked on the door a few times when he allegedly over the comment.

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Pujayasa told investigators, after his arrest, that the comment bothered him, and he spent the better part of the day devising a way to get even.

Later in the day, he used his key to enter the woman’s stateroom and hid in on the balcony. She returned, unaware that he was on the balcony and went to sleep. She awoke when Pujayasa jumped on top of her.

She was viciously beaten and raped and fought for her life as Pujayasa tried to throw her off the ship.

Another passenger heard her screams and pounded on the door to the cabin. Pujayasa fled via the balcony and made his way back to his own room where he told another employee that he thought he killed someone.

The woman was covered with bruises, half naked and had a cord dangling around her neck when she was rescued.

The cruise liner, MS Nieuw Amsterdam, docked in Honduras and the very badly beaten woman was flown to a hospital in Southern Florida. Cruise ship staff detailed Pujayasa until the ship docked at Port Everglades on Sunday, and he was arrested.

Sexual assaults aboard cruise ships are a very real threat to woman, especially women traveling alone on cruise ships. Many of the rapes and other crimes that occur on cruises ship are not even publicized because of the way cruise ship staff handles crimes. They try very hard to obtain confidentiality agreements from victims who oftentimes sign them because they are not fully aware of their rights.

In this case, Holland American did take swift action and fired Pujayasa. They also released a statement saying that the Indonesian man had passed a thorough background check.