Part Two: Some of the lucky ones get rescued

Svay Pak, Cambodia: The top floor of the building is the crime scene where police investigators gathered evidence used to convict Canadian sex tourist Chris Neil. Neil, from Maple Ridge, B.C., is currently serving time in a Thai prison. (Photograph by: Courtesy, Ratanak International)

Trauma counseling, education and training help Da and Sophia recover.

March 23, 2012
By Daphne Bramham
Vancouver Sun
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia

It’s a long climb up three flights of steep, narrow steps on an outdoor stairway flanked by a wall topped with razor wire.

Even after reaching the apartment door, there’s another flight of stairs. At the top, a narrow landing separates the bathroom and kitchen — little more than a sink and a counter top — from a large single room.

It’s a typical Phnom Penh apartment. The main room has a bed and a mattress on the floor and an ironing board. A wide tiled balcony in front is filled with laundry drying on racks.

Until recently, Da and Sophia had never imagined such luxury.

The sisters — now aged 22 and 18 — and their 17-year-old brother are Vietnamese, but they grew up in a village called Svay Pak, only 11 kilometres from the Cambodian capital.

Kelowna humanitarian needs help getting home after Cambodia heart attack

Jacqueline Light (left) had a massive heart attack in Cambodia while uninsured, leaving her daughter Stephanie Light to try to raise almost $100,000 to get her mom home. (Photograph by: Stephanie Light, For The Province)

August 14, 2011
By Mike Raptis
The Province (British Columbia, Canada)

A B.C. humanitarian with a heart of gold has undergone cardiac arrest in Cambodia and now needs the help of others to get home, her daughter says.

Kelowna resident Stephanie Light, 22, says her 53-year-old mom, Jacqueline Light, had been helping others in war-torn villages for the past two years when she suddenly had a massive heart attack on July 27th.

“Unfortunately it led to her being in a coma,” said Stephanie on Sunday.

“She went into cardiac arrest and [paramedics] had to spend 45 minutes resuscitating her.”

Press Release: The Cambodian Genocide: A Canadian’s Killers Finally Face Justice

Submitted by keypublishing on Jun 26, 2011

This is the story of Richmond, B.C. native and SE Asia yachtsman Stuart Robert Glass, shot and killed in August 1978 while sailing a 28-foot, Malaysian bedar named Foxy Lady off the coast of Democratic Kampuchea, as Cambodia was called under the murderous Khmer Rouge.

27-June-2011

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

David Kattenburg

Imagine the handsome son of your next door neighbour, venturing off on the yachting voyage of a lifetime, dashing off postcards from exotic spots around the world, and then vanishing. In response to his family's frantic search, his government investigates, discovers the young man was gunned down by soldiers of a genocidal regime, and then drops the case. News outlets briefly report, and then abandon the story. History forgets. This is the story of Richmond, B.C. native and SE Asia yachtsman Stuart Robert Glass, shot and killed in August 1978 while sailing a 28-foot, Malaysian bedar named Foxy Lady off the coast of Democratic Kampuchea, as Cambodia was called under the murderous Khmer Rouge. The fate of eight other Western yachtsmen – four Americans, two Australians, a New Zealander and an Aussie -- would be far worse, as Dave Kattenburg recounts in this compelling work of investigative journalism.

The author is available for radio, television and print media interviews and can submit brief magazine or online articles and photos. Publishers are invited to extract passages from the book. Foxy Lady – Truth, Memory and the Death of Western Yachtsmen in Democratic Kampuchea is an investigative journalist’s account of one of history’s most intriguing footnotes: the murder of four Americans, two Australians, an Englishman, a New Zealander and a Canadian by Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge. Foxy Lady chronicles the life and times of the Canadian, Stuart Robert Glass – his restless youth in British Columbia; his travels across Europe, North Africa and Asia; his forays into drug smuggling; his brutal 1978 death on board a little yacht called Foxy Lady. Stuart’s mates, New Zealander Kerry Hamill and Englishman John Dewhirst, would suffer a worse fate – dragged off to the Khmer Rouge’s Tuol Sleng death house in Phnom Penh, charged with being CIA spies, tortured for a few months and then killed.

Justice at last?

Stuart Glass at home in Richmond, B.C., circa 1969. (Courtesy of Roy Delong)

UNDER INVESTIGATION: Khmer Rouge navy chief Meas Mut (L) enjoys a relaxed moment at his village pagoda in Samlaut, Cambodia. Mut, the former top commander of the navy platoon that captured the Western yachtsmen, is widely believed to be among those under (Courtesy of Dave Kattenburg)

Trial for Canadian murdered 30 years ago convenes in Cambodia

Jun 22, 2011
By David Kattenburg
The Epoch Times

"It makes me wonder how much political influence is being wielded in Cambodia and what do the court’s funders think of the situation." —Rob Hamill

The family of a Canadian gunned down by a genocidal regime may finally see justice as the trial of the regime’s senior leaders convenes next week on the outskirts of the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh.

Richmond, B.C., native Stuart Robert Glass was shot and killed in August 1978 while sailing a little yacht, “Foxy Lady,” off the coast of Democratic Kampuchea, as Cambodia was called under the ultra-Maoist Khmer Rouge.

Glass’s two mates, a New Zealander and an Englishman, were trucked off to a Khmer Rouge death house in Phnom Penh codenamed S-21, tortured into confessing they were CIA agents, and finally killed. Six other yachtsmen, four Americans and two Australians, suffered the same fate. One of them may have been burned alive.

B.C. man's killers may finally face justice

The remains of Cambodians killed by Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime during their 1975-79 reign of terror lie in an abandoned school house in Tonle Bati, 40 km south of Phnom Penh.Photograph by: Reuters, Special To The Sun

Four top leaders of Khmer Rouge regime to face UN-backed tribunal in Phnom Penh on June 27

June 8, 2011
By David Kattenburg
Special To The Vancouver Sun (British Columbia, Canada)

It's unclear why Richmond native Stuart Robert Glass was sailing off the coast of Cambodia, back in August 1978, on a little yacht named Foxy Lady, when a patrol boat of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime appeared out of the haze.

He might have been on his way to Bangkok to pick up a load of Thai marijuana. Perhaps he was just there for fun and adventure.

Whatever the reason, Stuart Glass, who was only 27, was gunned down in a hail of bullets -the only Canadian to die, along with two million Cambodians, in one of the 20th-century's largest mass murders.

The fate of Glass's pals, a New Zealander and an Englishman, would be far worse.

Now, 33 years later, four top leaders of Democratic Kampuchea -as the xenophobic Khmer Rouge called their regime -will face a United Nations-backed tribunal on the outskirts of Phnom Penh. Their trial begins June 27.

Child sex tourist [in Cambodia] was a 'customer' (sic!), defence argues

Kenneth Klassen tries to hide his face as he arrives at B.C. Supreme Court for the second day of a sentencing hearing related to child-sex tourism in Vancouver, B.C., on Friday, July 23, 2010. (Darryl Dyck / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Friday Jul. 23, 2010
The Canadian Press

A Canadian man who admitted having sex with young girls in Colombia and Cambodia was a "customer" of willing participants and not an abuser, says his defence lawyer.

Kenneth Klassen pleaded guilty earlier this year to 14 counts of having sex with underage girls and one count of importing child pornography.

At his sentencing hearing Friday, the 59-year-old Burnaby man's lawyers said the crimes were "consensual" and his prison time should reflect that.

Lawyer Len Doust suggested a five- to six-year term. Prosecutor Brendan McCabe previously asked the court for a 12-year term.

"It would be an error in principle ... to find that (Klassen) is somehow deserving of a more severe sentence because of what is characterized as the abject poverty in some other country or the failure of some other location to provide for its citizens," his other lawyer, Ian Donaldson, told a B.C. Supreme Court judge.

It was wrong for Klassen to have sex with girls the Crown says were as young as eight, Donaldson said, but that shouldn't be a factor in his "moral blame-worthiness."

"If (the girls) had ever said 'No,' he would have stopped," Donaldson said.

Court has heard witness statements from several children saying they were given gifts and cash to buy things like new clothes or soap for their family.

McCabe said Friday that while he can't prove the girls were not sex workers, he believes they were just "inexperienced" children. Video footage shown only to the judge make it "abundantly clear" some of the girls were much younger than age 14, he said.

Klassen's lawyers said he concedes the girls were under age 14, but not that they were as young as eight.

Donaldson told the judge his client will get a "substantial sentence ... no doubt," but he shouldn't get a longer sentence because of the aggravating factors raised by the Crown.

In asking for a more lenient sentence, he said Klassen is willing to attend all rehabilitation programs offered in prison and had no prior criminal record. Klassen hasn't offended in the nearly six years he's been in Canada on bail, either, Donaldson said.

Doust said the offences didn't occur in Canada but in a country where Klassen lived for two decades -- Columbia -- and where sex laws aren't as rigorously enforced, making the acts "quasi-acceptable" in his mind.

"By entering the plea of guilty, this man has publicly acknowledged that he did what he's accused of doing, that he's responsible for it, that he understands and he accepts that his conduct was criminal and that it was morally wrong," Doust said.

And while Donaldson raised no issue with Klassen providing a mandatory DNA sample or having a weapons prohibition, he asked the judge not to impose a lifetime ban on him attending playgrounds or community centres. Donaldson said Klassen has children himself and may eventually have grandchildren.

"He sees what he did was wrong, he sees how to avoid doing that," Donaldson said.

Klassen was arrested in 2004 after he was caught trying to ship homemade DVDs back to Canada with images showing him having sex with prepubescent girls.

The father of three pleaded guilty to the 15 charges in May after a failed constitutional challenge to Canada's child-sex tourism law.

A judge is expected to sentence Klassen on Wednesday.

Bail for sex tourist angers advocate

Thursday, May 27, 2010
CBC News (Canada)

A women's rights advocate is outraged that a Burnaby, B.C., man who pleaded guilty to sex tourism charges has been released from custody pending sentencing.

Kenneth Klassen pleaded guilty in B.C. Supreme Court May 21 to having sex with more than a dozen girls under the age of 14 in Cambodia and Colombia between 1998 and 2002.

"With all due respect to the defence attorney, it just seems like a joke," said Holly Dignard, of Caleb's Hope, an organization that works with female victims of sexual assault in developing countries.

Crown prosecutors and Klassen's lawyer discussed on Thursday the possibility of the convicted man wearing an electronic monitoring device while he remains out on bail, but the decision was deferred.

"If he was a serial murderer, I highly doubt they'd be releasing him with something around his ankle to make sure he doesn't go kill someone," Dignard said.

Under surveillance
The RCMP said that Klassen, 59, is under surveillance, and the Crown prosecutor in the case said the man had been told that police were watching him.

"He is aware of being followed," Brendan McCabe told the court.

As part of his bail conditions, Klassen had to surrender his passport to authorities, cannot be in the presence of children without permission, has to remain in B.C. and cannot be away from his residence for more than 24 hours.

Dignard said those conditions were insufficient. She has started an online petition urging the court to revoke Klassen's bail and "sentence this man to the full extent of the law."

"I find it goes back to the core issue of rape and violence against women. People don't take it seriously enough," she said.

Klassen also pleaded guilty to importing child pornography.

Arguments on Klassen's bail conditions resume on Tuesday. No date has been set for sentencing.

Sex-tourism trial halts as man pleads guilty

May 23, 2010
By Keith Fraser
The Province (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada)

A Burnaby man has pleaded guilty in a Vancouver court to having sex with more than a dozen underage girls in Cambodia and Colombia.

Kenneth Robert Klassen also pleaded guilty in B.C. Supreme Court Friday to one count of importing child pornography in the high-profile sex-tourism case, believed to be the third such case prosecuted in Canada.

With his lawyer, Ian Donaldson, at his side, Klassen stood with his hands folded in front of him in the prisoner's dock as the criminal counts were read out.

Klassen, an international art dealer, pleaded guilty to six counts of invitation to sexual touching involving girls under the age of 14 in Colombia. The offences occurred between December 1998 and March 2002.

He also pleaded guilty to eight counts of invitation to sexual touching involving girls under the age of 14 in Cambodia in August 2001.

And he pleaded guilty to importing child pornography between August and September 2004.

The victims, who are referred to as Jane Doe numbers one to 14, cannot be identified due to a publication ban.

Klassen, a bearded, balding father of three in his 50s, appeared in court wearing brown pants, a brown jacket and a blue T-shirt.

Prosecutor Brendan McCabe is expected to seek a jail term of 12 years.

Donaldson left the court quickly with his client after the guilty pleas. He was not available later for comment.

The case began when customs officials seized a suspicious package from the Philippines containing commercial pornography. The package was picked up by Klassen, who was arrested in September 2004.

Police later seized 21 DVDs containing more than 200 images of child pornography from a Vancouver storage locker.

The lead investigator in the case, RCMP Sgt. Tom Kurucz, was present in court for the guilty pleas.

"I'm glad to see it come to an end -- obviously, a long time coming," Kurucz said outside court. "It's good to see some closure to it."

In December 2008, Supreme Court Justice Austin Cullen dismissed a constitutional challenge launched by Klassen to the so-called sex-tourism law.

Klassen, who has been free on bail, is to make his next appearance in court Thursday to set a date for sentencing.

UVic couple leads volunteer group to Cambodia and beyond

DWC team leader Dan Couture holds up a child of Chamcar Bei, Cambodia, where the team volunteered in 2008. (Jennifer Farquharson)

Feb 25, 2010
Carmen Kuntz
Martlet (U of Victoria, Canada)

Summer is coming and, for some students, that means filling a backpack and boarding a plane to participate in a much preferred form of post-secondary education: travelling.

For many, following the well-beaten path to typical tourist destinations or drinking out of buckets on a beach in Asia is where it’s at. But, for 20 UVic students, it means joining the Canadian non-profit volunteer organization Developing World Connections (DWC) and a team of like-minded people to work in under-developed villages across the globe with a community in need.

DWC is a volunteer-driven, registered, Canadian charity with no religious, political or professional affiliations. Founded in Kamloops B.C. in 2004, this relatively young organization offers students, families and adult groups a chance to travel while participating in sustainable community development projects like digging wells, building schools and helping communities become self-reliant.

In 2007, UVic students Jennifer Farquharson and Dan Couture finished their first year at UVic and joined DWC and a group of other students on a volunteer trip to Cambodia. Stationed in the small town of Chamcar Bei in southern Cambodia, the group participated in collaboration with the local community to complete a number of sustainable community development projects like repairing houses, harvesting rice, planting gardens and painting the local school.

Whether it was the feeling of positively contributing to the global community, the friends they made or the chance to use their traveling shoes again, these two were only back for one semester of school before they took off again in 2008 back to Chamcar Bei to continue their work.

Now studying in their fourth year at UVic, Farquharson and Couture are DWC team leaders, preparing to lead a group of UVic, Simon Fraser University and Thompson Rivers University students to Rwanda. The students will work with DWC and host organizations in the community of Gashora, a village in south-east Rwanda.

“We’ve taken on a leadership role to share this experience with students and friends” said Farquharson.

She praises DWC as a well-organized Canadian organization that, with no administration fees, gives a large sum of money directly to the community.

“On top of that, [DWC] allows you to travel as a group, and make friends [while] working for a common cause,” she said.

Buzz words like “development” and “sustainability” can mean so many things, but Farquharson specifies what DWC’s sustainable community development projects actually are.

“[The group’s projects] are sustainable in the sense that all projects are designed in the community, by the community members in partnership with host organizations,” Farquharson said.

Projects can include whatever is most needed — everything from livestock integration programs, agricultural aid, construction and repair of schools, development of women’s resources and water resource improvement projects.

Host organizations are local NGOs and groups acting as partners with DWC. In Rwanda, DWC is working with Building Bridges Over Rwanda to help the community design the exact project they want, then DWC brings in students.

Participation of the host organizations is extremely important as they ensure the projects are finished and continue to be productive, even when DWC volunteer teams leave.

“DWC makes a five-year commitment to the community to ensure their goals and expectations are met,” Farquharson explained.

Travelling is appealing and affordable for students and, with volunteer trips becoming more popular, why volunteer with DWC? Why volunteer at all?

“It allows students to travel in a culture rather than through a culture,” said Farquharson.

Couture has even more reasons.

“I enjoy trying to see a different way of life,” said Couture. “How these people live is quite admirable.”

Participants are responsible for funding their trip and are given resources to fundraise.

They are especially encouraged to raise money for the $500 that is an obligatory donation each student makes that goes directly toward supplies and tools for the project.

DWC trip leaders also offer a number of strategies and hold events to help the students raise money.

Farquharson and Couture recently held an event at Plan B nightclub, where cover and proceeds went directly towards these trips.

Fund-raising often covers plane tickets, but there is a fee of $1,500 which covers in-country costs, including transportation, accommodation, food and a cultural or tourist activity, like the genocide museum in Cambodia or gorilla watching in Rwanda.

Most trips last from about four to five weeks.

“DWC plans the route, and makes sure that in-country activities stay within the hands of locals, like, staying only in locally-owned hotels,” said Farquharson.

During the trip, group members stick together closely, travelling and living together. Accommodations and work are always done as a group.

If you’ve heard about the “volunteer holiday” but never had the opportunity to get involved, here is your chance. DWC offers volunteer projects in Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Cambodia, Peru, Guatamala, India, Kenya, Rwanda and Hati, where DWC will be assisting with the rebuilding efforts leaving in mid-March.

So get involved. See the world. Travel with purpose. If every travelling student dedicated just a couple weeks to a volunteer project, imagine what a difference we could make in the world.

For more information, contact Farquharson at jennfarq@uvic.ca. The group is still looking for a few more people for the July trip this year.

Canadian jailed for indecency with Cambodian sisters: judge

Thu, Nov 05, 2009
AFP

PHNOM PENH - A 68-year-old Canadian man has been jailed for a year for indecent acts with two Cambodian sisters aged 10 and 12, a judge said Thursday.

Daniel Lavigne, who has been in jail since his January arrest in the popular seaside resort of Sihanoukville, was also ordered to pay 500 dollars in fines after his conviction, judge Kim Eng told AFP.

"I sentenced him this morning to serve one year in jail for his indecent act against minor girls," the Sihanoukville court judge said.

Lavigne denied any wrongdoing and told police that he was the boyfriend of the girls' mother, Kim Eng added.

Dozens of foreigners have been jailed for child sex crimes or deported to face trial in their home countries since Cambodia launched an anti-paedophilia push in 2003 to try to shake off its reputation as a haven for sex predators.

Child abuse victim tells of ruined life

Saturday February 28, 2009
Source: NZPA

A 12-year-old Cambodian girl has not been told that images of her being sexually abused were found on the computer of a Christchurch man whose home was raided in December 2007.

Staff at the foster home where she now lives say that telling her about the images would only add to her shame, embarrassment and insecurity five years after she was rescued from child prostitution.

She had been abused by a Canadian offender who travelled to her village north of Phnom Penh. He has since been caught and dealt with, but the photographs he took as he carried out the abuse are apparently still in circulation.

When the Christchurch man was sentenced today, he went to jail for one year nine months on a series of charges, Christchurch District Court Judge Colin Doherty got the approval of the crown and police for the release of the Cambodian girl's victim impact report to the NZPA reporter.

It was a rare case where child pornography investigators had been able to identify and trace one of the children in the images, he said.

The released version of the report has the names of the girl and her village blocked out, as well as the name of the detective who made the connection, who was working undercover for the International Justice Mission while he was on leave from the New Zealand Police.

In January 2003, the girl was one of more than 50 children in the village between five and 12 years old who were "sold on a daily basis to Western paedophiles for sexual exploitation", the report stated.

"The girl, then aged seven, worked in the brothels near her home for a year before she was rescued. During this time she was expected to perform sexual acts with the `guests' who visited every day. In return, her parents received small amounts of money. There were many times she was photographed by guests."

One guest was the Canadian whose crimes were described as brutal, violent, and degrading in the report. His young victims were verbally abused and repeatedly forced to perform oral sex while he videoed and photographed them.

He was arrested in 2004 and became the first Canadian to be convicted using extra-territorial legislation covering offences against children overseas.

The girl was rescued in 2003 and lived in a shelter before she moved two years later to another organisation, Hagar International, that provided long term care and rehabilitation.

"Following the rescue operation, those involved in debriefing (the girl) stated that they had never participated in a case involving such savagery against children so young," the report said.

The girl still finds it distressing to talk about the abuse. She described her time in the village as "a big, black hole and sometimes I am scared I will fall back into it". She experiences flashbacks to that time.

The report describes her as a quiet girl with few friends. Through her art work she has described feeling "broken-hearted and hopeless".

"Below the surface she is a hurt little girl afraid of the memories that still haunt her," the report says.

In court today, Judge Doherty described the report as "chilling".

Was It Robbery or an Accident?

Was Jerry Zivny really an aid worker killed in a robbery or a drunk sex tourist injured in a motorcycle accident?

January 27, 2009
By Melissa Lampman
Kamloops This Week (Canada)

Questions raised in death of Kamloops aid worker in Cambodia

A new story is emerging about what happened to a Kamloops man who died in Cambodia, originally reported as having been attacked, robbed and left for dead in a ditch.

Jiri Zivny, 43, died on Jan. 15 in Calmette Hospital in Phnom Penh from injuries he allegedly sustained when assailants hit him on the head as he was riding away from a bank machine six days earlier in the coastal resort town of Sihanoukville.

According to the International Humanitarian Hope Society, the Kamloops-based charity with which Zivny went on the humanitarian aid mission to Southeast Asia to help orphans, Zivny was nearly beaten to death by his attackers, who stole $500 he withdrew at the ATM, along with his wallet, clothing and camera.

But subsequent reports from the country suggest the aid worker — who stayed with another group member known only as “Loren” to continue the mission overland to Thailand after the group split up in Vietnam in early December — may have died as a result of injuries he received in a motorcycle accident in Sihanoukville.

Curious to why newspapers in Cambodia were relying on Canadian media reports for information, freelance editor and writer Vincent MacIsaac, who lives in the small beachside town, looked into the alleged assault.

MacIsaac told KTW that, in addition to local traffic police reporting Zivny crashed his motorcycle into another bike in the early hours of Jan. 9, the chief of immigration police was quoted in the Cambodia Daily as never having heard of the attack.

“There was a media report that a fax was sent to the Canadian embassy here the day of the accident from traffic police in Sihanoukville, notifying the embassy that a Canadian had been injured in a traffic accident,” MacIsaac said.

When contacted by KTW, the Australian consulate in Phnom Penh, which provides services to Canadians in Cambodia, could neither confirm nor deny this.

“Consular officials are providing assistance and support to Mr. Zivny’s family, as well as following up with local authorities responsible for investigating his death,” said Daniel Barbarie, consular spokesperson.

“Due to the privacy act, no further information can be released on this case at this time.”

However, official police records show Zivny was transferred by an ambulance from Sihanoukville to the hospital in the capital city, where hospital records show he arrived at the emergency ward at 11:35 p.m. on Jan. 10, with the ambulance driver noting the patient had been in a motorcycle accident.

Zivny was immediately transferred to the intensive-care unit and, by 12:30 a.m., had been shifted to the neurological ward, where he died six days later, at 5:15 p.m. local time.

MacIsaac, who has worked in Far East and Southeast Asia for 14 years, was at Calmette Hospital the day Zivny died, interviewing doctors.

The doctors, he said, determined there were no cuts or bruises that indicated blunt-force trauma inflicted by an assailant.

“During the first interview, on the afternoon of Jan. 15, doctors treating the patient allowed me to see him,” MacIsaac reported in an article published in the Asian Sentinel.

“If he had been struck in the face, the wound had healed by then.”

Despite repeated attempts by KTW to contact her, Evelyn Picklyk, president and founder of IHHS, could not be reached for comment before press deadline.

Cambodian authorities testing two girls for HIV after Quebec man arrested

Wednesday January 14th, 2009
Tobi Cohen
THE CANADIAN PRESS

MONTREAL - Authorities in Cambodia are testing two young girls for HIV after their mother claimed a Canadian man accused of sexually abusing them infected her, a local child protection organization involved in the case said Wednesday.

Daniel Lavigne, 68, was arrested Monday and later charged with having sexual intercourse and committing indecent acts with minors, aged 10 and 12. His hometown in Quebec was not known.

Seila Sanleang, director of Action pour les enfants, said his organization had been monitoring the accused since his first of three visits to the country in August.

Information and evidence obtained by the group, which seeks to fight child exploitation and assist victims, was given to police and ultimately helped lead to Lavigne's arrest.

"We are an organization that protects children from child exploitation but we have an investigation team to monitor and investigate the sexual exploitation of children," he said.

The group became suspicious after the man rented a guest house in the coastal town of Sihanoukville, about 185 kilometres southwest of the capital Phnom Penh, and was seen there with the two girls.

Sanleang said the group monitored Lavigne for two days in August and again in September and while they handed over the information to police, it wasn't until his third visit that they finally acted.

Sanleang said Lavigne told him he'd been staying in China between his visits to Cambodia.

He said Lavigne met the widowed mother while she worked as a street vendor in Phnom Penh.

"According to the mother, they met on the street by chance and then they built a relationship and he just wanted to have the relationship with the mother," he said.

"Then he was also introduced to the two girls by the mother and then the relationship between Daniel and the two girls started."

He said the mother also told authorities she'd been infected with HIV.

"The tests of (the children) is underway," he said. "They are waiting for the tests from the doctors."

Canadian officials said they've been in contact with a Quebecer who has been arrested in Cambodia for allegedly sexually abusing two young girls.

Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Lisa Monette said Canada is aware that a man has been detained and that an investigation is underway.

"Consular officials have been in contact with the arrested Canadian and they are offering their support and assistance," she said.

"Due to the Privacy Act, I can't confirm other details including the identity of the individual."

Soun Sphan, Sihanoukville province deputy police chief for anti-human trafficking, said Lavigne was arrested Monday at a bus station.

He said Lavigne denied the charges and claimed he was headed to the capital with the two girls whom he he said he treated as his adopted daughters.

The girls told police Lavigne had sexually molested them at a guesthouse, Sphan said.

Until a few years ago, poverty and lax enforcement made Cambodia a prime destination for foreigners seeking sex with minors.

Police have since cracked down and several foreigners are serving lengthy prison terms as a result.

Sanleang said there have been three similar cases involving Canadians in the last few years but that none of them were convicted. There have been a total of about 60 sex offender cases involving foreigners, he said.

If convicted, Lavigne can face up to 13 years in prison.

(With files from The Associated Press)

Canadian man arrested in Cambodia for alleged child sex abuse

Wed, 14 Jan 2009
DPA

Phnom Penh - Cambodian police said on Wednesday they had arrested a Canadian man who allegedly sexually abused two young girls in the costal resort town of Sihanoukville. Police arrested 68-year-old Daniel Lavigne on a tourist bus travelling from Sihanoukville to Phnom Penh on Monday after he allegedly sexually abused two sisters aged 10 and 12.

Regional migration police chief Som Saruen said Lavigne had confessed to "indecent acts" against the children but denied having sexual intercourse with them.

Lavigne told police he was a boyfriend of the girl's mother, who police said was also being investigated.

Som Saruen said Lavigne was scheduled to appear before a court and be formally charged on Thursday.

Canadian arrested for alleged abuse of Cambodian sisters: police

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

PHNOM PENH (AFP) — A 68-year-old Canadian man has been arrested for allegedly sexually abusing two Cambodian sisters aged 10 and 12 in a popular seaside resort town, police said Wednesday.

Daniel Lavigne was arrested at a bus station in Sihanoukville on Monday, a day after he allegedly abused the girls at a guesthouse, said Be Sivanna, chief of the town's anti-trafficking and juvenile protection unit.

Police accused Lavigne with having sex with underage girls and committing indecent acts against minors, Be Sivanna told AFP by telephone.

"The suspect denied he committed the crimes. He told police he loved the girls as his daughters because he has a love affair with the girls' mother," he said.

"But the girls testified that he sexually abused them," he said, adding that the man would face formal charges in court on Wednesday.

Dozens of foreigners have been jailed for child sex crimes or deported to face trial in their home countries since Cambodia launched an anti-paedophilia push in 2003 to try to shake off its reputation as a haven for sex predators.