Prosecutors in the Philippines are fighting to bring back the death penalty in the case of the alleged Australian child sex abuser Peter Scully.

The 52-year-old from Melbourne is accused of masterminding a worldwide criminal network, producing and selling videos online showing child sex abuse and torture. He has pleaded not guilty in a Philippine court.

In a case that has shocked both countries, Scully is being investigated for the alleged rape of an 18-month-old baby girl and the murder of a 12-year-old girl whose body, prosecutors will allege, was found buried beneath the kitchen of an apartment he rented in the southern city of Surigao.

Two teenage girls were allegedly found naked and chained in another apartment he rented. He faces a total of 75 charges.

“If I had my choice it would be death for Scully – I want it to happen,” the chief prosecutor, Jaime Umpa, was quoted by Fairfax Media as saying.

“We have to send a strong message to others that if they come to the Philippines and torture and abuse our children ... they will be investigated with the full force of the law.”

Capital punishment was outlawed in the Philippines in 2006 – in part due to pressure from the Catholic church – but could be reintroduced by the legislature at any time.

Rodrigo Duterte, who was inaugurated as president in June, has himself called for criminals who commit “heinous crimes”, such as rapists, to be executed.

In his first media conference after being elected as head of state in May, Duterte announced he would urge congress to restore the death penalty by hanging.

Umpa said that, unless the death penalty was reintroduced, prosecutors would have to push for the maximum sentence of life imprisonment for human trafficking and 10 years for each of the five sexual abuse charges, a total of 100 years in jail.

But Philippine law would allow Scully, if convicted, to serve 30 years and then be deported to Australia for the rest of his incarceration.

“We don’t believe this is sufficient,” Umpa said.

On Tuesday, Scully heard the first five charges against him related to the alleged abduction and sexual abuse of the two teenage girls in Cagayan de Oro in September 2014. The trial could last years.

Scully fled to the Philippines from Australia in 2011 after he was charged with fraud. Investigators allege he made videos of child abuse that were then sold to customers in the US, Germany and Brazil.

Tens of thousands of children are believed to be involved in online child abuse in the Philippines, according to the UN. Detective Superintendent Paul Hopkins, the head of the Australian federal police team in Manila that worked on the Scully case, has described the size of the trade as “monstrous”.