A Canadian schoolteacher accused of sexually abusing boys across Southeast Asia was arrested and paraded before the cameras in Thailand Friday, ending a global manhunt sparked by a decoded digital photo.
Christopher Paul Neil, 32, tried to hide under a blue shirt as he was led in handcuffs past dozens of waiting reporters and into Thailand's national police headquarters.
He later sat in silence for about five minutes alongside police, stonefaced and wearing dark sunglasses with a white T-shirt and black nylon running pants. Colonel Pasial Luesomboon, the officer who arrested him, told AFP that Neil only confirmed his name, age and nationality when he was arrested around 11:00 am (0400 GMT) in Thailand's third-largest city Nakhon Ratchasima.
"Then he said he knew this day would come, because a Thai court had issued an arrest warrant. He said he needed a lawyer but hasn't said anything at all since then," Pasial said.
The worldwide search for Neil began just 10 days ago with a groundbreaking appeal from Interpol for the public's help in tracking down a man seen in 200 photos on the Internet that appeared to show him abusing a dozen young boys.
The man's face had been digitally swirled, but German computer experts reconstructed the images which Interpol then posted on its website along with its call for assistance. The operation was codenamed "Vico" because the images were believed to have been taken in Vietnam and Cambodia in 2002 or 2003.
More than 300 people replied to Interpol's call, with five people on three continents offering critical information, the agency said in a statement on its website.
"The fact that we went to the public was the breakthrough," Interpol detective Mick Moran told AFP. "We are absolutely delighted that this guy has been arrested," he added. Neil was found in a one-storey rental house in Nakhon Ratchasima, around 300 kilometres (200 miles) northeast of Bangkok, where he was with a 25-year-old Thai transvestite, police said.
Police gave no details about his relationship with his companion. The deputy national police chief, General Wongkot Maneerin, said Neil could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted over accusations that he abused a nine-year-old boy in Bangkok four years ago.
If any other countries want to prosecute him, he could be extradited after serving any prison time received in Thailand, Wongkut added. Neil had been teaching English at a school in Seoul, where South Korean police are also investigating his activities. He flew to Bangkok on October 11, when security cameras documented his arrival at the airport.
Neil has visited Thailand six times since 2000, and in 2003 had tried and failed to get a job teaching at an international school in Bangkok, according to Thai officials. Interpol says Neil is from suburban Vancouver, where Canadian media reported that his mother and a sibling still live.
Neil once studied at a seminary, hoping to become a priest, but was eventually shunned by his teachers, who felt he lacked the moral backbone for the task, according to reports.
An official at the Bangkok school where Neil tried to get a teaching job described him as an introvert, who was not hired because he had difficulty co-operating with school officials and other teachers. The school said no complaints were filed regarding any abusive behaviour.