British National Faces Incarceration in Cambodia

Moments ago, rising to hear his sentence, British headmaster John Keeler was grinning from ear to ear. Now his knees are weak and a wave of nausea flows through his body. "Pedophile - guilty: Three years in a Cambodian jail." His head spins. He picks up his chair and throws it at the judge. "Scum!" he shouts across the court as guards rush to restrain him. "I paid $5,400. I am supposed to go free. This isn't justice, this is robbery!" Then he starts to sob. He says he's going to die if they put him back in that hole.

One positive development has been the recent introduction of extra-territorial legislation in the UK. In brief, this means that people convicted of pedophile activities abroad can also be prosecuted in their country of origin. Last year the legislation was used to prosecute Kenneth Biden, a British man who assaulted several children in the holiday resort he ran in northern France. Norman Trew of the National Criminal Intelligence Service Pedophile Intelligence Unit says: "Pedophiles believe that if they travel to destinations outside the UK's jurisdiction, they will be safe from the law. Today this is not the case. The UK takes the issue of sexual abuse of children very seriously, with sentences up to life imprisonment for the most serious offenders."

According to the statistics of sex tourism in Cambodia, it is understandable that John Keeler feels aggrieved. Over the past few years, hundreds of foreigners have been arrested for sexual offences in the country but only Keeler has been tried and jailed. Before his landmark case, most westerners arrested by police for sexual offences involving a minor could depend on a sleazy mix of police bribes, victim "compensation" and embassy pressure to ensure their freedom.

Source: The Scotsman. (2001). The price of innocence. June 23, 2001.

Australian police visited Cambodia to find the girls in the photos for their testimony, but could not locate them. The main evidence used to convict the man was scientific as there were no witnesses and the pictures did not show his face. Experts matched the exploiter's skin and fingerprints from the sadistic photographs and identified the age of the girls.

Source: End Child Prostitution And Trafficking - ECPAT. (1999). A Step Forward. Bangkok.

The Osaka District Court on Thursday sentenced a 38-year-old Japanese man to two years and six months in prison for paying two underage girls for sex in Cambodia in 2000.

According to the ruling, Takeshi Ozawa paid a 13-year-old Vietnamese girl $60 to have sex with him in a hotel in Phnom Penh in August 2000 and paid a 14-year-old Vietnamese girl $550 to have regular sex with him for a week in a hotel in the city in December 2000, even though he knew both girls were under 18.

Ozawa's arrest in December 2001 was the first under a 1999 law that makes it illegal to pay for sex with a minor abroad. "The crimes were extremely malicious and the prison sentence without suspension is inevitable," Judge Miyako Fujiwara said. The judge said Ozawa visited Cambodia a number of times to buy sex from underage girls, adding, "His committals are addictive."

Local police in Phnom Penh arrested Ozawa on suspicion of child abuse and other allegations. He was freed on bail during a preliminary trial and returned to Japan last June before the Cambodian court reached a verdict, according to the Osaka police.

The Osaka police said they began investigating the case after being notified about it by the National Police Agency, and then arrested Ozawa in December.The law banning people from buying sex from those aged under 18, which took effect Nov. 1, 1999, allows Japanese police to arrest suspects even if the illegal acts have taken place abroad. If found guilty, offenders face a maximum three years in prison.

Source: Kyodo