Police in Phnom Penh on Mon-day arrested a US man and a Cambodian woman for the alleged trafficking and sexual abuse of two Cambodian girls, officials said Tuesday.
Municipal anti-human trafficking police arrested Roger Dale Green, 58, at the Regent Park Serviced Hotel and Apartments in Daun Penh district, the department’s deputy chief Keo Thea said.
Two girls, aged 11 and 10, were in Green’s room with him and statements taken from the girls indicate they may also have been abused by other men, Keo Thea said.
“We hope to arrest other foreigners,” he said without elaborating.
The girls’ mother, Mei Sokha, 50, who police suspect provided the girls to Green, was also arrested, he said.
“We will send the American citizen, Roger Dale Green, to Phnom Penh court tomorrow to be charg-ed with debauchery and the victims’ mother, Mei Sokha, will be charged with human trafficking,” he said.
Hotel receptionist Bou Daroit said Green had checked in Sunday after arriving directly from Phnom Penh International Airport and had not aroused suspicion since he arrived with the girls’ mother and rented three separate rooms.
“If there was no mother we would have asked more questions,” she said. “We agree with the police and are helping them.”
US Embassy spokesman Jeff Daigle said he was legally barred from commenting on the case.
Katharine Keane, country director of the anti-pedophile NGO Action Pour Les Enfants, said her group alerted police to Green the day he was arrested. “He was seen by APLE staff and we of course immediately alerted the anti-human trafficking unit,” she said.
