| Rock star Glitter charged with child molestation in Vietnam |
|
|
|
HANOI, Vietnam: Former British rock star Gary Glitter has been formally charged Friday with committing obscene acts with two girls aged 10 and 11 at a Vietnamese resort, according to a prosecutor.
The charges, if proved in a court, carry prison terms of up to seven years.
Glitter, 61, whose real name is Paul Gadd, is under custody of the police in the southern Vietnamese province of Ba Ria Vung Tau since November after he tried to flee the country. The prosecutors dropped a charge of child rape against him in December for lack of evidence. It is reported that the victims' families had told the prosecutors to show leniency.
The prosecution charge now is that he committed the alleged obscene acts against the two girls at his home in Vung Tau. He is alleged to have fondled and kissed the girls and made other physical acts.
The prosecutors are expected to hand over the case to the provincial court, which will decide in a month whether Glitter will go on trial. Glitter's lawyer had made compensatory payments of $2000 to the families of each of the girls, based on an appeal to the courts for clemency. Child advocacy groups had criticised the payouts saying the former pop star was trying to buy his way out of his predicament.
Glitter has record. He has been convicted for possessing child pornography in Britain in 1999 and had undergone a four-month jail sentence. He then went to Cambodia, but that country permanently expelled him in 2002.
Posted
on : Sun, 08 Jan 2006 20:05 GMT | General News
By : Salim Patel
|
| |
| Related |
|
|
|
