Thailand Nabs hunted
Canadian Pedophile suspect
The Canadian
pedophile suspect, Christopher Neil, who has been the focus of
world wide hunt that ended in rural Thailand on Friday, will be
charged with molesting underage children after being tracked down
through his boyfriend's phone.
Neil is also accused of raping young boys in Vietnam and Cambodia
after being unmasked by ingenious police computer work and hunted
in a unique Internet appeal.
"From pictures on the Internet, there were five to seven children
under age 10 who have been abused by him, including one girl,"
Deputy National Police Chief, Wongkot Maneerin told newsmen in
Bangkok.
Neil, 32, caught in the northeast Thai province of Nakhon
Ratchasima, 250 km (150 miles) from Bangkok and well off the
normal tourist trail, refused to answer reporters' questions.
Thai police appealed for more victims to come forward after they
nabbed Neil at a rented house.
Police said Neil, who arrived in handcuffs at national police
headquarters; covered his head with a blue T-shirt, had confirmed
his identity to investigators but said nothing else.
Neil was no stranger to Thailand, having once taught in a Bangkok
language school, but his hiding place was revealed by a trace on
the mobile phone of his 25-year-old Thai boyfriend, identified by
transvestites in the seedy beach town of Pattaya.
The Hunt
Thai police issued a warrant for Neil's arrest on Thursday, a week
after he fled South Korea, after two Thai teenagers accused him of
paying for oral sex when they were nine and 14, grounds for
prosecution under Thai law.
Neil could face up to 20 years in jail if convicted in Thailand.
Cambodia and Vietnam might also want to question him.
Detectives in various countries had been trying to track Neil down
since German police discovered photographs on the Internet three
years ago of a man sexually abusing 12 boys in Vietnam and
Cambodia.
His face had been scrambled with a digital swirling pattern, but
German police computer experts managed to unravel the "Swirly
Face" disguise and Interpol issued an unprecedented worldwide
appeal through the Internet for information on who the man was.
The Interpol said more than 350 people came forward and Neil was
identified by five sources from three different continents.
Neil abruptly left South Korea, where he was teaching, after
Interpol broadcast his cleaned-up photograph and flew to Thailand,
where he was photographed with shaved head and glasses by airport
security cameras.
Thailand and its neighbors immediately alerted border posts in
case he tried to sneak across a land frontier as Thai police
launched a manhunt.
REUTERS/YINKA
