TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Manhunt Ends In Thailand

ADVERTISEMENT

By AMBIKA AHUJA, The Associated Press

Published: October 20, 2007

BANGKOK, Thailand - With the help of a computer program, German police digitally unscrambled the swirls that obscured the face of a man depicted having sex with boys in Vietnam and Cambodia.

With the reach of the Internet, an unprecedented worldwide appeal by Interpol brought hundreds of responses via e-mail to the French-based police agency.

And with the aid of traced cell phone calls, Thai police tracked the suspect to a house well off the usual tourist trail, in northeastern Thailand.

The high-tech police work resulted in the arrest Friday of Canadian schoolteacher Christopher Paul Neil, suspected of sexually abusing Asian boys, after a three-year global manhunt.

Neil, 32, was detained at a house that he had rented with a Thai transvestite friend in the rural province of Nakhon Ratchasima.

'I think he knew we were coming,' said police Col. Paisal Luesomboon, who was on the five-member police team that made the arrest. 'He knew that there was an arrest warrant issued and that his face was posted everywhere.'

Taken to the Thai capital, Bangkok, Neil made no comments to waiting reporters.

Neil was charged Friday with detention of a child under 15 without parental consent, punishable by up to three years in prison; taking a child under 15 from his parents without consent, punishable by five to 20 years; and sexual abuse of a child under 15, punishable by up to 10 years.

He is supposed to be brought before a judge today in order for police to keep him in custody pending further investigation.

The charges are based on the alleged abuse of a 9-year-old boy in Bangkok in 2003, but police say at least three other boys are thought to have had sex with him, and more charges may be filed.

Interpol called on his alleged victims to come forward.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT