International Child Abuse
Suspect from Interpol Photo Caught 
Sunday, October
21st, 2007
We posted this guy's photo in our news roundup on October
8th, when Interpol unswirled the suspect photo and asked
the public's help in identifying him. For years, authorities say
this man has sexually abused children, with the pictures circulating on
the internet. Unable to identify him, they finally turned to the
public and released a snapshot of him.
They've
caught their suspect.
Police traced a call on Thursday night made by a
25-year-old Thailand man who they believe arranged some of the suspect's
illegal sexual encounters with young Asian boys. It led police to
32-year-old Christopher Paul Neil, a Canadian schoolteacher staying at a
rural house in Nakhon Rathcasima, a province in northeastern
Thailand.
Neil was charged Friday 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; and
sexual abuse of a child under 15, punishable by up to 10 years.
Further investigations are still underway.
Police say Neil surrendered peacefully and acknowledged
he was the man that they were looking for, but Lt. Col. Manat
Thongsimuang said Neil "denied all charges" when questioned on
Friday.
After seeing Neil's photograph on television Wednesday,
three more Thai children contacted authorities and said Neil paid them
500-1,000 baht each ($16-32 U.S. dollars) to perform oral sex on him in
2003; they were ages 9,13 and 14 at the time of the alleged
incidents. Neil had a teaching job in Thailand
from 2002 until early 2004.
Prior to that, he was a chaplain in B.C., Canada.
Up until last week, he was a teacher in South Korea, counseling
teenagers, until he abruptly bought a one-way ticket to Thailand, where
he is now being held in jail.
Guilty or innocent: I would so not want to be that
guy right now.
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