Briton John Keeler—the first Westerner convicted of a sex crime to serve a full jail sentence in Cambodia—has been sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment in his home country for sex crimes committed there against children, according to news reports.
Keeler was released from Kandal provincial prison in August after serving three years on a debauchery conviction. He had been caught videotaping four girls, aged 8 and 10, posing indecently in a Takhmau town park.
After his release, Keeler was immediately deported to Britain, where he faced 19 counts of indecent assault and two of indecency, The British Broadcasting Corp reported last week.
The charges stemmed from incidents that occurred in Britain in the late 1970s and mid-1990s and involved three girls under 16 years of age.
The BBC reported that presiding Judge Graham Hume Jones dubbed Keeler a “cynical manipulative pedophile.”
Chheng Phat, the Kandal prosecutor who handled Keeler’s case, applauded the court’s ruling.
“I received this cheering information last week over the radio,” he said.
Chheng Phat described Keeler as “not afraid of sin.”
Minister of Women’s Affairs Mu Sochua also welcomed the British court’s decision but said she worried that other pedophiles are loose in Cambodia.
Mu Sochua also said she will not “calm down” about disgraced British rock star Gary Glitter until he is expelled from Cambodia.
Glitter was convicted of possessing child pornography in Britain in 1999 and now lives in Takhmau.
