Cambodian Police Arrest German on Child Sex Abuse Charge

By Sopheng Cheang/AP Writer/Phnom Penh

Police caught a German man in bed with a 14-year-old girl in the Cambodian capital and arrested him on debauchery charges, two of the arresting officers said Friday.

Police raided the suspect's Phnom Penh hotel room Thursday and discovered him with the teenage girl, said Keo Thea, deputy chief of Cambodia's anti-human-trafficking police.

Keo Thea declined to give any details, but one of the arresting officers, who asked not be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said the 61-year-old man came from Cologne in Germany.

Keo Thea said the suspect would face formal charges in a court, but he did not say when or define the charges.

The other officer said the suspect was arrested for debauchery—a legal term for the sexual abuse of children under the age of 16—a charge that is punishable by up to 20 years in jail.

He said police officers burst into the German's hotel room and found him—dressed only in his underwear—lying asleep on the bed with the fully clothed girl.

The girl later told police that she and the man had sex several times before the raid. It was not immediately clear if she also faced any charges.

A French child rights group had been watching the suspect for some time. Action Pour Les Enfants investigators saw the man hanging around with two teenage girls, including the one whom he was with during the arrest, said Samleang Seila, the group's director in Cambodia.

The detention of the German is the latest in a string of arrests of Westerners suspected of child sex offenses in Cambodia.

In March, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court sentenced two German men to a total of 40 years in prison for sexually abusing ethnic Vietnamese girls aged 10 to 14 years.

Then in April, the same court charged Walter Muze, a 62-year-old German from Stuttgart, with debauchery for having sex with a 13-year-old Cambodian girl. Last month, a Russian businessman was arrested in Cambodia on charges of having sex with at least six girls.