Sexual Abuse

Municipal anti-human trafficking police on Saturday arrested a 38-year-old British national on suspicion of having sex with an underage girl and possessing child pornography, an official said. Keo Thea, head of the municipal Anti-Human Trafficking and Juvenile Protection Bureau, said the suspect had been arrested at his home in Meanchey district, where he was living with his 21-year-old Cambodian girlfriend and a 13-year-old Cambodian girl. He added that the man, who was living in Cambodia and working for a “private online company”, would be sent to court on Monday. Meanwhile, police are continuing to search his computer for pornographic images, Keo Thea said. “It takes 16 to 17 hours to copy from one computer to another for the search,” Keo Thea said, and added that police were receiving assistance from “a group of researchers from the United Kingdom”. UK embassy officials could not be reached for comment on Sunday. Samleang Seila, director of the child protection NGO Action Pour Les Enfants, said his group had issued warnings to authorities about the suspect as far back as 2006, but that no action had been taken.