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Interpol seeks public's help
06/11/2007 18:14 - (SA)
Marrakech, Morocco - Interpol will make more use of public appeals in its efforts to identify paedophiles, officials said on Tuesday, despite concerns that such moves could lead to vigilantism.
The measure, adopted Monday at the global police organisation's annual general assembly in Marrakech, comes after a recent successful appeal led to the identification and arrest of a suspected Canadian paedophile in Thailand.
"It was approved with a huge majority," Interpol president Jackie Selebi told AFP in the southern Moroccan city.
The resolution states "that each case must be treated individually and that consideration may only be given to publishing information to the public when all avenues of investigation have been exhausted".
Christopher Paul Neil, 32, was arrested in northeast Thailand on October 19 just 11 days after Interpol issued an unprecedented worldwide public appeal for help to identify a suspected paedophile.
The suspect was pictured in about 200 Internet photos depicting the sexual abuse of Asian boys, with his face digitally swirled to conceal his identity.
But German police computer experts unscrambled the pictures and produced identifiable images of the man which Interpol made public.
Some senior Interpol members had opposed unmasking the suspect on the grounds that it would alert criminals to the fact that police could now unblur pictures, and prompt them to use different ways to hide their identities.
Against public appeals
Several delegates at the Interpol general assembly in Morocco also opposed making public appeals for help because of the risk that suspected paedophiles could commit suicide or suffer mob justice, a European delegate said.
But Interpol director general Jean-Michel Louboutin said the agency would for each case carry out an evaluation of the risks that a public appeal would have for the suspect before one is made.
"In the end we have to decide between two contradictory interests, those of the paedophile and those of the victims and potential victims," he said.
"For Interpol there is no alternative. We have definitely decided to protect the children," he added at a press conference.
Of the 144 Interpol member states taking part in the annual general assembly, 115 voted in favour of the measure, one formally abstained and no country voted against it, Selebi said.
'Operation Vico'
Interpol dubbed the appeal which led to the arrest of Neil "Operation Vico" because the images were believed to have been taken in Vietnam and Cambodia in 2002 or 2003.
Before deciding to ask for help from the public, Interpol had circulated photos of Neil to police around the world to try to identify him, with no success.
But just three days after launching its appeal, the agency had established his name, nationality, birthday and place of work. More than 350 people on five continents provided information.
Interpol maintains a database of 520 000 images of sex abuse of children submitted by member states and has already identified several cases in which an appeal for the public's help could be useful.
- AFP
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