Bali Police probe suspected pedophile

DENPASAR, Bali: Police here said on Tuesday they would delay the extradition of a Frenchman wanted in his homeland on child sex charges because he was a suspect in similar crimes in Bali.

Bali Police spokesman Sr. Comr. AS Reniban said the decision was made after an investigation turned up evidence that Michel Heller, 56, had sexually assaulted at least three children in Karangasem district.

"After the investigation into his case is completed in Bali, we will probably send him to France," Reniban said.

Police said Heller was arrested last Wednesday at a bungalow in Bunutan village in the east of Bali. A young boy was also in the bungalow at the time of the arrest.

Bali Police were alerted to Heller after French authorities requested that the suspect be apprehended.

Heller is wanted in the southwestern French town of Grasse, near Nice, on child sex charges, according to a French police source.

Bali and several other islands in Indonesia, including neighboring Lombok, are thought to have been infiltrated by international child sex networks.

A former Australian diplomat arrested in Bali in 2004 on child sex charges, hanged himself in his cell last May after he was sentenced to 13 years in prison. --Antara