BANGKOK - Police in Thailand filed fresh charges today against a Canadian pedophile suspect after a second boy testified that he had been sexually abused four years ago.
Canadian schoolteacher Christopher Neil was arrested in Thailand last Friday after Interpol issued a worldwide appeal to identify and apprehend him. Police initially charged the 32-year-old Maple Ridge, B.C., native with sexually abusing a boy who was nine years old in 2003.
Lt. Col. Manat Thongsimuang, deputy chief of the police's Suppression of Crime Against Children, Juveniles and Women Division said new charges were filed today after the boy's older brother, who was 14 at the time, alleged he also had been sexually molested by the suspect.
He said the new charges are: taking away a child under 15 without parental consent with intent to molest, punishable by up to 20 years in prison, and sexual abuse of a child under 15, punishable by up to 10 years. Neil had been sought by police since photos appeared on the Internet allegedly showing him sexually abusing boys in Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand several years ago.
Police went to inform Neil of the charges where he is being detained, at Bangkok Remand Prison.
"He refused to give a statement until he has a lawyer,'' said Manat, adding that Neil's family in Canada are arranging to hire a lawyer for him.
Photos of the siblings were among some 200 pictures found by Interpol on the Internet in which the face of the perpetrator was digitally obscured.
After German police computer experts managed to unscramble the photos so the man's face was recognizable, Interpol circulated them publicly, and tips led them to identify Neil as the suspect.
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.
