Friday, 17 July 2009

Man sentenced over child porn

The Phnom Penh Post
Friday, 17 July 2009
Chrann Chamroeun

Japanese tourist sentenced to six years in jail after being found guilty of having minors in Preah Sihanouk province pose for him in nude photos

PREAH Sihanouk provincial court on Thursday sentenced a Japanese man to six years in prison for having boys aged between 7 and 14 pose for him in pornographic photos.

Judge Kim Eng also ordered the accused to pay 500,000 riels (US$119) in compensation to each boy and told him he would be expelled from Cambodia once his prison sentence was served.

Shunichi Nakagawa, 33, was arrested in August last year when police caught him photographing young boys at O'Tres beach, said Chor Heng, Preah Sihanouk deputy police commissioner.

Peng Maneth, a lawyer provided by the child rights group Action Pour Les Enfants (APLE), said the group would appeal the sentence to demand greater compensation for the boys.

"We are going to appeal the sentence to try to get more compensation, as the man has been convicted on similar charges and served two-and-a-half years already in Japan," she said.

"The compensation is very small and does nothing to repair the victims' reputations that have been damaged when their naked bodies were exploited," she added.

New law a success: NGO
Samleang Seila, country director for APLE, said he welcomed the conviction, which he said he believed was the first under a law against child pornography that was introduced in 2007.

Defence lawyer Chan Vannak said his client had one month to consider whether or not to appeal the sentence.

Be Sivanna, director of the Ministry of Interior's Anti-Human Trafficking and Juvenile Protection Department in Sihanoukville, said Nakagawa had paid the boys between $2 and $5 each to pose naked, adding that Nakagawa had entered Cambodia as a tourist on August 6.

Chor Heng said Nakagawa had first photographed the boys in August and arranged to meet them again the following day, by which time local authorities had been tipped off by area residents who had witnessed Nakagawa snapping pictures of the children.

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