Bali Police probe suspected pedophile

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