GARY GLITTER could face a firing squad or decades in a squalid jail if he is found guilty of raping a 12-year-old girl in Vietnam.

The girl is said to have admitted having sex with the 61-year-old former glam rock star, allegedly for £5.50, but police in the Vietnamese resort city of Vung Tau said yesterday that it was still considered rape under Vietnamese law.

Glitter, real name Paul Gadd, was arrested as he tried to leave Vietnam for Bangkok via Tan Son Hnat airport in Ho Chi Minh City on Saturday, after police started searching for him in connection with allegations about his relationships with two teenage girls.

If he is imprisoned, the former singer will find Vietnamese jails very different from Horfield Prison in Bristol, where he served two months in 1999 for possessing “hard-core, sick and degrading” images of children. Vietnamese jails are notorious for their squalor, harsh treatment of prisoners and lack of attention to sanitation, hygiene and food.

Even if he is not prosecuted in Vietnam, Glitter could face charges in this country if he ever returned under Britain’s “sex tourism” laws — the Sex Offences Act 1996.

A Home Office spokeswoman said that British police could ask for the file on any alleged sexual offence that is recognised in this country to be sent to them for consideration. “We would always prefer someone is prosecuted in the country where the offence is committed, but if not we have the power to look into it here,” she said.

Prisoners in Vietnam are allowed only 12kg (26½lb) of rice or a rice substitute each month and this is often reduced to 9kg for minor infringements of prison rules or showing disrespect. As well as being made to undertake hard labour, prisoners are expected to repent their crimes frequently and in writing. Beatings with bamboo canes are common, as are the use of stocks and electric shocks.

However, the country very rarely, if ever, executes foreign tourists. The last foreign citizen to be put to death was Nguyen Thi Hiep, who held dual Canadian-Vietnamese citizenship, in 1999. In August this year Tran Van Thanh, 40, an Australian citizen, had his death penalty commuted to a life sentence. Both were convicted on drug smuggling charges.

Police are understood to have been searching for Glitter, who has applied for permanent residency status, since he disappeared from his home in Vung Tau last week. According to local press reports, two girls, one aged 12 and the other 18, claimed that they had gone to his home for sex. He is said to have paid the younger girl 150,000 dong (£5.50) for sex.

“We have opened a judicial inquiry on Glitter to determine whether he indulged in lewd acts with children or sexually abused them,” Do Minh Dan, deputy director of Ba Ria-Vung Tau provincial police, said.

“However, we can already say he has had sexual relations with Vietnamese adolescents.

“We have to complete our dossier on this affair and that will take time. It’s only after investigations are complete that we will be able to decide whether or not to go ahead with judicial proceedings against him in the provincial court. On this issue, we will need to consult our superiors.”

Police in the city filed an arrest warrant for Glitter, who is on the sex offenders register in Britain, on Friday. He can be held for nine days by the police before they have to ask for more time to question him.

The charges of “lewd acts with children” or sexual abuse of children carry sentences of 12 and 15 years respectively, but Glitter could end up serving longer. Under Resolution 49 of the Standing Committee of the 2nd Congress in Hanoi, criminals can be kept indefinitely and no prisoners are released unless the local commune of authority is willing to let them back into society.

Last November ten people were publicly executed by firing squad in front of 1,000 people in Nam Ding province.

Each victim received five shots to the body and one final bullet to the head, but the Government is now considering a more “mechanised” method to bypass the “trembling hand syndrome” suffered by members of some of the firing squads.

Glitter was sentenced to four months in jail in Britain, but served only two, after admitting downloading more than 4,000 images of children, some as young as two, on his laptop computer. The pictures showed boys and girls being sexually abused, tortured, bound, gagged and blindfolded.

RISE AND FALL

1944 Born Paul Francis Gadd in Banbury, Oxfordshire

1958 Aged 14, given first record deal by Decca

1961 Taken on by Ready, Steady, Go pop show

1972 First hit record, Rock and Roll Parts 1 and 2, reaches No 2 in UK, No 1 in US

1973 Two No 1 hits as Glam Rock hits peak

1980 Declared bankrupt

1988 Makes successful comeback

1997 Arrested on child pornography charges after taking computer to be repaired. Staff found pornographic images of children and called police

1999 Sentenced to four months’ imprisonment

2000 Released after eight weeks. Moved to Cuba, then Cambodia

2003 Deported from Cambodia after allegations of child abuse

2005 Found in Vietnam by newspapers. Arrested

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