A 56-YEAR-OLD Canadian man has pleaded guilty in the Supreme Court of British Columbia to eight counts of “sexual touching” in cases involving underage girls in Cambodia in August 2001, according to reports from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Kenneth Robert Klassen was arrested in March and charged with 35 crimes against girls under the age of 14 in Cambodia, Colombia and the Philippines.

He also pleaded guilty to six counts of sexual touching involving girls under the age of 14 in Colombia from 1998 to 2002, and to one count of importing child pornography in 2004. He faces a maximum of 10 years in prison if convicted.

A Canadian police official said in March that the arrests came following the interception at Vancouver International Airport of suspicious DVDs containing “video clips that depicted Mr Klassen engaged in illegal sexual conduct involving numerous young females aged from 9 to 18 years of age”.