German formally charged with child-sex crimes in Cambodia

Apr 11, 2007, 8:47 GMT

Phnom Penh - A Cambodian court formally charged a German man with child-sex crimes after two days of questioning and remanded him in custody, police said Wednesday.

Phnom Penh deputy police chief of anti-trafficking Keo Thea said Walter Munz, a 62-year-old tourist from Stuttgart, had been sent to Prey Sar prison awaiting trial. Under Cambodian law he can be detained for up to six months while police investigate the case.

He was formally charged with debauchery - the Cambodian legal term covering a wide range of sex crimes but most often applied to charges of adults having sex with minors.

'We acted on information provided by the German police, and we are still seeking possible associates of this man,' Thea said, adding that police believed there may be more victims yet to come forward.

Munz was arrested Sunday in a raid on a local guesthouse. Police allege he was found in a state of undress with a 13-year-old girl in his room.

Thea said police had confiscated a number of photographs during the raid depicting street children in various poses, some of them pornographic.

'He had claimed he was an aid worker helping street children, but the German police informed us he should be watched, and we investigated and arrested him,' Thea said.

He said Munz had befriended the alleged victim and her mother when they were begging on the city's busy riverfront.

He said Munz had won the mother's trust by claiming that he wanted to give the girl tuition, but the girl claimed that instead he had repeatedly sexually molested her, and threatened her if she told anyone about the abuse.

If convicted he faces 20 years in prison and is liable to considerable compensation payouts to victims.