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More charges against paedophile
23/10/2007 21:32 - (SA)
Bangkok - A second Thai boy has accused a Canadian schoolteacher of sexual abuse, police said on Tuesday, adding that more charges will be filed against the suspect captured last week after a global manhunt.
Christopher Paul Neil, 32, was arrested in Thailand on Friday following a worldwide search led by Interpol to track down a man seen in 200 internet photos abusing a dozen young Asian boys.
Neil already faces charges of molesting a nine-year-old Thai boy in 2003, and Lieutenant General Wimon Pao-In said on Wednesday authorities would file two more charges of kidnapping and molesting a minor.
A 19-year-old boy told police that he was abused by Neil in 2003, after he was lured to the Canadian's apartment to play video games, Wimon said.
The boy, then 14, went to Neil's apartment twice and was paid 500 baht for each visit, Wimon said. The boy said that on his third visit, he was paid 1 000 baht and was sexually abused, he added.
"We will charge Neil, who is now in prison, with additional charges of kidnapping and molestation," Wimon said.
"We have very strong evidence. We can bring him to justice and punish him," he added.
If convicted of the new charges as well as the earlier ones, Neil could face up to 40 years in prison, Wimon said.
Canadian broadcaster CTV reported that Neil had denied the allegations against him, saying in a jailhouse interview that he had a "good defence". He also said he did not want to be extradited to Canada.
Operation 'Vico'
On Saturday, a Thai court granted a police request to extend Neil's detention in a Bangkok prison by at least 12 days.
The suspect, who is from a suburb of Vancouver, flew to Bangkok from South Korea on October 11, when security cameras documented his arrival at the airport.
He was found on October 19 in Thailand's third-largest city of Nakhon Ratchasima, about 300km northeast of the capital.
Neil's face had been digitally swirled in the incriminating photos, but German computer experts reconstructed the images which Interpol then posted on its website along with its public appeal for help.
The operation was codenamed "Vico" because the images were believed to have been taken in Vietnam and Cambodia in 2002 or 2003.
More than 300 people replied to Interpol's appeal, with five people on three continents offering critical information, the agency said on its website.
- AFP
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