Disgraced rocker Gary Glitter arrived back in Bangkok yesterday after Hong Kong denied him entry, continuing a two-day odyssey that began when he was released from a Vietnamese prison after serving time for molesting children.
Glitter, a British citizen, flew to Hong Kong on Wednesday night after Thai authorities barred him from entering the country. Hong Kong immigration officials then refused him entry after interviewing him, a British Foreign Office spokesman said.
Police Colonel Worawat Amornwiwat said Glitter arrived back in Bangkok yesterday and would again be denied entry. He said Glitter’s airline, Thai Airways, should ensure he continues on his originally planned journey to England.
“Thailand is not allowing him to enter the country and Hong Kong is turning him back so there is no choice for him now,” Worawat said. “It is the responsibility of Thai Airways to take him out of the country.”
On Tuesday night, Glitter, whose real name is Paul Francis Gadd, was taken from his prison cell to a Thai Airways flight out of Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. He had been booked to change planes in Bangkok en route to London, but refused to board the flight to Britain, complaining of an earache.
Lieutenant General Chatchawal Suksomchit, chief of Thailand’s immigration police, said Glitter was denied entry because under Thai immigration laws those convicted of child sex abuse in a foreign country can be barred.
Glitter, 64, was convicted in March 2006 of committing “obscene acts with children.”
He served two years and nine months of a three-year sentence, which was reduced for good behavior.
Meanwhile Britain announced new measures to crack down on child sex offenders on Wednesday, as Glitter’s release from jail reignited a fierce debate about pedophiles.
In an announcement timed just hours before Glitter was originally due back in London, British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith unveiled a raft of new measures to tighten restrictions on child sex offenders and their movements.
“The UK has a rigorous system in place for managing child sex offenders which is among the toughest in the world. The changes I’m announcing today will strengthen that even further,” she said.
These could include taking away pedophiles’ passports and extending travel bans.
Branding Glitter “despicable,” Smith said she found it “pretty hard to imagine” that he would be allowed to travel abroad again.
Doctor Michele Elliott, of the children’s charity Kidscape, told the Daily Mail newspaper: “It makes you sick ... He should go and live on a desert island. Nobody wants him.”
And Lorraine Williams, landlady of the Swan Inn in Glitter’s old village, told reporters: “He won’t be getting a pint in here. We have children coming in with their parents. You can’t be too careful.”
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS