C ANBERRA - A Cambodian boy has testified that former Australian Ambassador to Cambodia
John Holloway twice had sex with him in Phnom Penh in 1994 in return for $2 each
time.
The boy, said to be 14 at the time, told Canberra Magistrates Court that he suffered
gonorrhea after having sex with Holloway under a tree near Wat Botum.
The boy testified that on another occasion he engaged in sex acts with Holloway and
his driver Chetra at the former ambassador's home.
The boy said next morning Holloway ate bananas and pineapple but only gave him $2
before sending him on a moto-taxi back to his home at the temple.
However Michael Somes, the magistrate at the commital hearing, raised doubts about
the reliability of the testimony, saying that if it was the only evidence given during
the case he would be reluctant to commit Holloway for trial.
Crown prosecutor Peter Hastings QC said evidence would be led that Holloway also
had sex in 1994 with a then-13 or 14-year-old boy in a Phnom Penh hotel.
The boy, an orphan, said that Holloway turned young children into male prostitutes.
He said he went to the hotel in the hope Holloway would adopt him.
The names of the alleged victims have been suppressed in court. The charges carry
a maximum sentence of 17 years jail. The case had yet to end at the time the Post
went to print.
Holloway has not entered a plea but strenuously denies the accusations. His counsel
David Buchanan accused both boys of lying so that welfare organizations like World
Vision would give them financial support.
"No, I did not make it up. It is the truth," said the boy who testified
that Holloway engaged in sex acts with him near Wat Botum, and at the ambassador's
house. Buchanan said it was obvious to all that the boy had perjured himself.
The boy gave evidence from a separate court room linked by closed-circuit television.
He said after Holloway had asked him to have sex he "was walking around the
temple looking for more children." He said the sex act lasted 30 minutes and
that whenever anybody came within ten meters Holloway would pull up his trousers.
The court heard the boy say he led Australian Federal police to Holloway's house
where he said sex acts had also taken place, and that he also identified Holloway
from photographs and said that Holloway had a lump on his back.
Questioned by Buchanan, the boy said that he had testified in a Cambodian court last
year against a British doctor Gavin Scott who was found guilty of child sex offenses
and jailed.
The boy said he'd been told he would get $400 compensation from the Cambodian court
and that he lied about having had sex with Scott.
But later the boy said Scott had oral sex with him and "not had sex but tried."
He said he did not want to talk about Scott's case.
The other boy, an orphan who said he will turn 17 next year, told the court that
Holloway twice performed sex acts with him at the Angkor Hotel.
The boy said he knew that Holloway - whom he knew as Mr Klong - was high ranking
in the Australian embassy. He said that Holloway had a lot of money to help children
but "then he did something like that to me... some bad things."
Asked why he did not tell Holloway that he was misbehaving, he said: "I could
not tell him about good and bad because I was with him for a short time and I wanted
to become one of his adopted children... he [has] got money and he makes people to
become male prostitutes.
"He took me as his adopted child, but not a real child to live with him - he
used me as a thing to please himself."
Buchanan questioned the boy about contradictions in what he told Australian police
in Phnom Penh in 1995 and his testimony before court.
The boy said that he went with Holloway in 1994 and was interviewed by police the
next year. "I am sure I could not remember everything...," the boy said.
The boy said that sometime in 1994, "near 1995", he was approached by Holloway's
interpreter outside Wat Botum, where he was living at the time.
He said that he and a Cambodian youth aged about 18 were driven to the Angkor Hotel
and went to a room, where sexual acts took place with Holloway.
Holloway then left and later returned, after which another sex act occured. The boy
said Holloway paid him some money before he left for the first time but none the
second time.
"It appeared that Mr Klong had a high feeling, a high feeling. But I just wanted
to finish and get out as quickly as possible," the boy said of the experience.
During cross-examination by Holloway's counsel, Buchanan, the boy appeared not to
understand some questions. At one stage Judge Somes told Buchanan the boy "doesn't
perhaps understand what you are asking him."
The boy confirmed that he had also testified against Gavin Scott in Phnom Penh last
year.
He said he testified then "because I knew Dr Scott and as a doctor he should
know about children...because he did not do the right thing."
The Holloway case is the first where alleged victims from another country have been
brought to Australia to testify under the recent Child Sex Tourism Act law, that
carries a maximum of 17 years jail.
Earlier in the hearing, Heng Vibol, an investigator for the human rights group Licadho
said that a "whole group" of children had been potential witnesses against
Holloway.
Vibol said that he had once talked to Holloway in the park near Wat Botum and another
time had seen him there talking to children. He agreed that some of the evidence
included versions of sex with Holloway that he had not heard before.
Vibol denied he had offered children cash to give evidence.
