Accused Canadian's trial date to be set in Thailand

Sun. Mar. 9 2008
CTV.ca News Staff (Canada)

Canadian Christopher Neil, accused of sex crimes against children in Thailand, will appear in court Monday in Bangkok to have his trial date set.

"We are expecting tomorrow to be somewhat procedural," CTV's Steve Chao told Newsnet on Sunday from Beijing. "The prosecution is expected to set a date for them to present the evidence against Neil."

The key witnesses are two young Thai brothers who allege that Neil sexually abused them. They were aged nine and 14 at the time of the alleged offences.

Neil has been charged in Bangkok Criminal Court with:

• Taking a child under 15 without parental consent with intent to molest, punishable by up to 20 years in prison;
• Illegal detention, punishable by up to three years;
• Sexual abuse of a child under 15, punishable by up to 10 years.

Neil has previously pleaded not guilty to the charges. In an earlier interview with Chao, Neil suggested he thought the Thai case against him was not very strong.

"The prosecution over this past week has refused to speak to us about what evidence they have against him ... So the question is, do the Thai authorities have more evidence against him than the two boys who have come forward," Chao said.

Neil, 32, became the object of an international manhunt after police officers in Germany managed to digitally restore altered photos of a man having sex with children.

The photos were reportedly taken in Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand.

Authorities in Vietnam and Cambodia also want to interview Neil, who is originally from Maple Ridge, B.C. He had been working in Asia as an English teacher.

Neil was finally arrested in Thailand last October. "Thailand for a long time has been seen as a place where fugitives can hide and enjoy relative security away from the prying eyes of police," Chao said, adding it also has a reputation as a playground for pedophiles.

This past week, a reputed Russian arms dealer, Viktor Bout, was arrested in Thailand.

Thai authorities say the increasing numbers of foreigners being charged and deported shows they are taking the issues of child sex tourism and being a perceived fugitive haven seriously.

Canadian accused of molesting young boys in Thailand pleads not guilty

Canadian former schoolteacher Christopher Neil, center, is chained as he walks to a prison bus after hearing a child molesting trial at criminal court in Bangkok, Thailand Friday, Jan. 11, 2008. Neil was arrested in Thailand in October last year on charge of sexually molesting a 9-year old boy in 2003. If found guilty, Neil will be punished up to 20 years in prison. (AP Photo/Apichart Weerawong)

The Canadian Press

BANGKOK, Thailand - A Canadian pedophile suspect arrested last year after high-tech detective work and a global manhunt pleaded not guilty Friday to molesting underage boys in Thailand, a Thai court statement said.

Christopher Paul Neil, formerly of Vancouver, was arrested in Thailand on Oct. 19, 2007 after the France-based international police agency Interpol issued a worldwide appeal to identify and apprehend him based on some 200 Internet photos believed to show him carrying out acts of sexual abuse.

In the photos, the face of the perpetrator was digitally obscured, but German police computer experts managed to unscramble the photos so the man's face was recognizable. Interpol circulated the pictures publicly, and from the tips they received identified Neil as the suspect. The boys shown in the photos were believed to be from Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand.

A statement issued by Bangkok Criminal Court, where Neil appeared Friday, said that he pleaded not guilty to charges of taking a child under 15 without parental consent with intent to molest, punishable by up to 20 years in prison; illegal detention, punishable by up to three years; and sexual abuse of a child under 15, punishable by up to 10 years.

When he was arrested, Neil was charged with sexually molesting a nine-year-old Thai boy in 2003. He was subsequently charged with sexually molesting the boy's older brother, who was 14 at the time, according to police.

Shackled at the ankles and dressed in a pale orange prison uniform, Neil was smiling Friday as he was ushered out of the courthouse with other defendants into a prison van after his hearing.

"Have a day nice day, guys," he said to reporters, but did not answer any question about the trial or the charges he faced.

The court set March 10 as the opening day for his trial. Neil evidently has not yet secured a defence lawyer; he said he would find his own, but the court said it would appoint a lawyer if he does not have one by the first hearing, according to the court statement.

Neil, a schoolteacher, lived in Thailand from 2002 to early 2004, according to police. Three Thai youths contacted police after seeing Neil's photograph on television, claiming he had paid each of them 500 baht to 1,000 baht ($16-32) to perform oral sex on him in 2003. They were aged nine, 13 and 14 at the time of their alleged abuse.

In Canada, Neil's family has said they will do everything they can to support him and have called for his extradition. Canada has sex tourism laws allowing prosecution for crimes committed overseas.

Neil's arrest ended a global manhunt that started in 2004 when the photos were discovered on the Internet of an unidentified man having sex with dozens of Asian boys, some as young as six.

After reversing the digital swirl that had obscured the suspect's face, Interpol issued its unprecedented public appeal for help in identifying him, and were soon able to trace him to Thailand.

Several countries in Southeast Asia are popular with pedophiles because of poverty that drives children and their parents to accept money for sexual favours, and because of lax law enforcement.

Arrest of Net pedophile

Map of Thailand. Thai police have arrested a suspected Canadian paedophile after a global manhunt launched when computer experts unscrambled digital photos allegedly showing him having sex with young boys. (AFP Graphic)

Christopher Paul Neil, a Canadian schoolteacher accused of sexually abusing boys across Southeast Asia, is escorted by Thai policemen during a press conference in Bangkok. Neil was arrested and paraded before the cameras in Thailand, ending a global manhunt sparked by a decoded digital photo.(AFP/Pornchai Kittiwongsakul)

Christopher Paul Neil, a Canadian schoolteacher, sitting right, is shown at a police news conference next to the spokesman for the Royal Thai Police, Lt-Gen. Pongsapat Pongcharoen, sitting left, in Bangkok, Thailand Friday, Oct. 19, 2007. Neli, 32, of New Westminster, has become the world's most wanted suspected pedophile, was arrested earlier Friday in the northeastern province of Nakhon Ratchasima, where he was hiding with a Thai friend who had arranged his sexual liaisons with young boys. (AP Photo/Apichart Weerawong)

Thais nab Canadian paedophile suspect

19th October 2007
Reuters

Canadian paedophile suspect Christopher Neil, unmasked by nifty computer work by German police and a unique Interpol internet appeal, was arrested in rural Thailand on Friday after a week-long man-hunt.

Thai police said they had picked up the 32-year-old, accused of raping young boys in Vietnam and Cambodia several years ago, in the province of Nakhon Ratchasima, 250km northeast of Bangkok and well off the normal tourist trail.

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 Thai boyfriend, tourist police chief Chuchart Suwannakom told Reuters.

"They went together to different provinces, probably on the run, and the last call made was from Nakhon Ratchasima," Chuchart said. "So I sent my men there."

Thai police issued a warrant for Neil's arrest on Thursday, exactly a week after he fled South Korea, following accusations by two Thai teenagers of him paying them for oral sex when they were 9 and 14, grounds for prosecution under Thai law.

Neil was to be paraded before reporters at national police headquarters in Bangkok later on Friday.

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 disguise and Interpol issued an unprecedented worldwide appeal through the Internet for information on who the man was.

More than 350 people came forward and Neil was identified by five sources from three different continents, Interpol said.

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 neighbours immediately alerted border posts in case he tried to sneak across a land frontier as Thai police launched a man-hunt to rival their search a year ago for JonBenet Ramsey murder suspect John Mark Karr.

Karr was arrested in a run-down Bangkok hostel and sent back to the United States, where he was eventually cleared of any involvement in Ramsey's murder, one of the most infamous unsolved US crimes.

Neil could face up to 20 years in jail if convicted in Thailand.

It is not know whether Canada - which can prosecute its citizens for child sex crimes committed abroad - will seek extradition.

Cambodia and Vietnam might also want to question him.

Search for net pedophile Christopher Paul Neil extends to Cambodia's border with Thailand

Keo Vannthan, director of Cambodia's Interpol bureau, shows pictures and a passport document of suspected pedophile Christopher Paul Neil of Canada, at the police headquarters in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2007. Vannthan said, police in Cambodia, which shares a border with Thailand, where Neil was last seen, were scouring the country for victims of abuse or anyone who might have known Neil, though they had not yet determined whether he had visited Cambodia or abused children in the country. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

Cambodia names Interpol-hunted pedophile suspect

Net pedophile: Canadian national called Christopher Paul Neil?

Mon Oct 15, 2007

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Cambodian police said on Tuesday a suspected serial pedophile being hunted by Interpol across Asia was a Canadian national called Christopher Paul Neil, born in 1975.

Keo Vanthan, deputy director of Interpol offices in the impoverished Southeast Asian nation, said Neil had visited Cambodia before leaving for Vietnam, but had no further details.

"We have issued an alert to all our international borders," Keo Vanthan told Reuters, although he added that Cambodia did not yet have enough evidence against Neil to issue an arrest warrant.

Interpol said on Monday the suspect, code-named "Vico", was believed to have fled to Thailand last week from South Korea where he had been teaching English.

Investigators have been trying for three years to track down the man after German police discovered the first of 200 photographs on the Internet in which he was shown abusing 12 young boys in Vietnam and Cambodia.

His face was disguised with a swirly digital pattern, but experts at Germany's BKA federal crime office managed to unscramble it.

The cleaned-up images, showing a white man with receding black hair, were posted on Interpol's Web site www.interpol.int a week ago.

On Monday, the police organization released an image of the suspect taken by security cameras at Bangkok airport last Thursday after he flew in from Seoul. He looks significantly older and balder.

Thai police said the hunt for him was on.

National police spokesman Pongsapat Pongcharoen said Interpol had contacted the Thai police about the man. "So far we don't have clear evidence to say it is the same man. We were told the man caught on the camera might be the same guy they are looking for. We are looking for him."

(Additional reporting by Nopporn Wong-Anan in Bangkok)