The American director of a local orphanage was arrested yesterday over rape charges incurred in the United States.

Colonel Lao Lin, chief of the Anti-Human Trafficking and Juvenile Protection Unit, said Daniel Stephen Johnson, 35, director of the Hope Transitions orphanage, was arrested at his rental house in Phnom Penh’s Chamkarmon district.

“He was accused by American police of rape, and he had escaped to hide in Cambodia,” Lin said.

“He is now still detained for further questioning and investigation at the Ministry of Interior,” he added, declining to speak further about the case.

A senior police official at the Ministry of Interior, who asked not to be named, told the Post yesterday that according to an US Federal Bureau of Investigation report sent to the General Commissariat of National Police, Johnson was accused of five separate instances of raping a minor. Johnson entered Cambodia in August, the official added.

“To hide from arrest, he was working with a humanitarian and children’s organisation in Cambodia,” he said. “He will be transferred soon to the American FBI after our relevant Cambodian police have completely questioned him,” he added.

The official noted that there are more than 30 children currently staying at the Hope Transitions centre.

Johnson could not be reached for comment yesterday.