Australia welcomes arrest of fugitive child sex offender
Australia welcomes arrest of fugitive child sex offender
Agencies
Canberra/Denpasar
Australia's justice minister congratulated Indonesian and
Australian police on Sunday for tracking down and arresting a
fugitive Australian child sex offender on the Indonesian resort
island of Bali.
Minister Chris Ellison said Paul Thompson, who uses the
aliases Paul Spraggs and Paul Jarvis, was arrested on Bali on
Friday and deported Saturday in the company of two Australian
Federal Police officers.
He was met in Perth late on Saturday by Western Australian
police and taken into custody.
Thompson, 55, was sought by Western Australian authorities
after he escaped in 1991 from a prison where he was serving a
sentence for child sex offenses. He will have to serve the
remaining two years of the sentence.
He was also wanted in several other Australian states in
relation to similar offenses.
"The rapid location and return to prison in Australia of
Thompson demonstrates the close working relationship between the
Indonesian and Australian police and the work of the Australian
Federal Police force's international network," Ellison said in a
statement as quoted by AFP.
"The Indonesian and Australian governments are both strongly
committed to protecting our children from sexual abuse and
bringing the perpetrators to justice."
The Australian Federal Police has assigned Paul Honniford, a
senior officer from the federal police's sexual exploitation and
trafficking team, to train police in Bali on how to tackle and
investigate pedophile cases.
Bali Police deputy chief Brig. Gen. Teguh Soedarsono said
Honniford had been assisting investigators in preventing similar
crimes from taking place in the future considering the fact that
Bali is regularly visited by a large number foreign tourists,
including pedophiles.
The Australian Federal Police have also sent two other senior
officers, Grant Edward and Michael Kelsey, to share their
experience in handling pedophilia cases during a workshop held by
the Bali Police recently.
Bali Police officials said five suspected pedophiles escaped
from Bali, following the arrest of a former Australian diplomat
last month on charges of molesting two local children, due to
poor intelligence work.
All the suspects are foreign nationals and believed to be
members of an international pedophile network that targets
children, particularly those from impoverished areas.