German arrested in Thai, Cambodian child sex abuse case
A German man caught in bed with a 14-year-old Cambodian girl has been arrested in one of several new suspected pedophile cases in Southeast Asia, police said. The arrest came after police in Thailand detained a British man on suspicion of pedophile activities, and officers in Vancouver held a Canadian whose extradition to face a child sex charge _ also in Thailand _ had been sought.
Keo Thea, deputy chief of Cambodia’s anti human-trafficking police, said Friday (2 Nov) that police in Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh, raided the German suspect’s hotel room Thursday (1 Nov) and found him with the girl. He will face charges in court, Keo Thea said.
In Canada, Orville Frank Mader, 54, was arrested on arrival Thursday at Vancouver’s international airport, said police Col. Apichart Suribunya, head of Thailand’s Interpol liaison office.
Thai police had issued an arrest warrant for Mader on Wednesday (31 Oct) after an 8-year-old Thai boy said a Thai man took him to Mader’s hotel room in Thailand’s beach resort town of Pattaya, Apichart said.
“We have asked Canadian authorities to extradite him because he has committed crimes in Thailand,” Apichart said. Under Canadian law, its citizens can also be prosecuted at home for sex crimes committed abroad.
Mader’s arrest followed the detention Tuesday (30 Oct) of Paul Cornelius Jones, 39, of Cardiff, Wales, after a raid on his Bangkok apartment where police said they found a computer with photos of naked children. Jones has been charged with distributing pornographic photographs of children under age 15.
“What we are seeing is an increased level of awareness among the police structures (and) the establishment of specialised units that allow them to arrest the perpetrators,” said Carmen Madrinan, executive director of a worldwide network called End Child Commercial sex trade, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes.
But she said “there are still many loopholes and gaps in the legislation system and the judiciary that enable perpetrators to avoid conviction.”
French child rights group Action Pour Les Enfants said it had been watching the German suspect for some time. Agency investigators saw the man with two teenage girls, including the one he was with at the time of his arrest, said Samleang Seila, the non-governmental organisation’s director in Cambodia.
The problem of Western pedophiles in Southeast Asia was highlighted by a worldwide appeal by Interpol that resulted in the October 19 arrest in Thailand of Christopher Paul Neil, another Canadian, who is accused of abusing Thai, Vietnamese and Cambodian boys.
Category: Society
