Refugee
10-20-2007, 03:25 AM
BANGKOK, Oct. 19 At first, on the Internet, he was just a swirly face, something akin to a large multicolored lollipop that a man might give to a little boy.
On Friday, the Thai police said he was under arrest and charged as a pedophile after computer experts had unswirled the digitally altered face in a virtuoso act of electronic decoding.
The suspect, Christopher Paul Neil, 32, was found after Interpol issued a rare international appeal based on 200 Internet pictures showing the faceless man sexually abusing boys in Vietnam and Cambodia. Interpol said the man had abused a dozen boys in those countries, some as young as 6.
The Thai police said they had done some high-tech work of their own, tracing Mr. Neil to a location outside Bangkok through the cellphone calls of a friend.
Officials said Mr. Neil, who has been living in Asia and has taught English in Thailand (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/thailand/index.html?inline=nyt-geo), Vietnam and South Korea, would be prosecuted here and then sent to his home nation, Canada. The Canadian police are weighing whether to charge him under a recent law for sex crimes committed abroad.
Mr. Neil was born in British Columbia and studied there at Christ the King Seminary to be a priest. As part of his training, he volunteered as a teacher at a Roman Catholic elementary school in 2000 and 2001. He was eventually asked to leave the seminary. He just did not have the qualifications as a person, Nicholas Ruh, the rector, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
He was also a volunteer chaplain and counselor at air cadet summer training camps in Canada. The armed forces said they had not received any complaints.
Wally Oppal, the British Columbia attorney general, said the police were looking into several complaints about Mr. Neil from people in the Vancouver area.
His was the latest highly publicized arrest of foreigners accused of abusing children in Southeast Asia. They include the British rock star Gary Glitter, who was imprisoned in Vietnam last year, and John Mark Karr (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/k/john_mark_karr/index.html?inline=nyt-per), who falsely claimed to have killed the American child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/jonbenet_ramsey/index.html?inline=nyt-per).
On Friday, the Thai police said he was under arrest and charged as a pedophile after computer experts had unswirled the digitally altered face in a virtuoso act of electronic decoding.
The suspect, Christopher Paul Neil, 32, was found after Interpol issued a rare international appeal based on 200 Internet pictures showing the faceless man sexually abusing boys in Vietnam and Cambodia. Interpol said the man had abused a dozen boys in those countries, some as young as 6.
The Thai police said they had done some high-tech work of their own, tracing Mr. Neil to a location outside Bangkok through the cellphone calls of a friend.
Officials said Mr. Neil, who has been living in Asia and has taught English in Thailand (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/thailand/index.html?inline=nyt-geo), Vietnam and South Korea, would be prosecuted here and then sent to his home nation, Canada. The Canadian police are weighing whether to charge him under a recent law for sex crimes committed abroad.
Mr. Neil was born in British Columbia and studied there at Christ the King Seminary to be a priest. As part of his training, he volunteered as a teacher at a Roman Catholic elementary school in 2000 and 2001. He was eventually asked to leave the seminary. He just did not have the qualifications as a person, Nicholas Ruh, the rector, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
He was also a volunteer chaplain and counselor at air cadet summer training camps in Canada. The armed forces said they had not received any complaints.
Wally Oppal, the British Columbia attorney general, said the police were looking into several complaints about Mr. Neil from people in the Vancouver area.
His was the latest highly publicized arrest of foreigners accused of abusing children in Southeast Asia. They include the British rock star Gary Glitter, who was imprisoned in Vietnam last year, and John Mark Karr (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/k/john_mark_karr/index.html?inline=nyt-per), who falsely claimed to have killed the American child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/jonbenet_ramsey/index.html?inline=nyt-per).