Visit our website at www.afp.gov.au for all the latest information on the Australian Federal Police
23 October 2009
Media Release
Man arrested after extradition from Cambodia
A 53-year-old Daintree man has been arrested by the Australian Federal Police
(AFP) at Brisbane Airport, following his extradition from Cambodia.
This man is the first person to be extradited to Australia to face prosecution for
offences under the laws which came into effect on 1 March 2005 relating to
online child sex exploitation within the Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth).
The arrest has resulted from an extensive investigation known as Operation
Resistance, which commenced in June 2008 after information was received by
the AFP’s High Tech Crime Operations Child Protection team from child
protection counterparts in Brazil. The information indicated that alleged
offenders were sharing videos depicting child sexual abuse on the Internet.
The man will face Brisbane Magistrates Court today, charged with offences
including accessing child abuse material.
This extradition is also the first extradition from Cambodia to Australia since
the introduction of the Cambodian Criminal Procedures Code in mid-2007.
On 20 November 2008, AFP officers executed a search warrant at a residential
premises in Daintree, North Queensland.
The AFP seized ten hard drives and 60 compact discs at the premises. The
total storage capacity of these items is approximately one terabyte.
The AFP estimates that one terabyte equates to 40,000 A4 filing cabinets of
paper.
The AFP will allege in court that up to 140,000 images and 10,350 graphic
videos were located at the premises, containing abuse images of children and
infants as young as 12 months to persons under the age of 16.
In December 2008, a first instance warrant was issued in Queensland for the
arrest of the offender, who was believed to be travelling in South East Asia.
The man was arrested by Cambodian authorities in May 2009 pursuant to a
provisional arrest request made by Australia. Following the presentation of a
formal extradition request by Australia, and approval by the Cambodian
Government, the man was extradited to Australia today.
Cambodia and Australia have both ratified the Optional Protocol to the
Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution
and child pornography. The Optional Protocol allows signatory countries to
make extradition requests for extradition offences in the absence of a bilateral
extradition treaty. This is the first extradition request to be made by Australia
under the Protocol.
Visit our website at www.afp.gov.au for all the latest information on the Australian
Federal Police
The man has been charged by the AFP for possessing child exploitation
material, contrary to the Criminal Code (Qld), accessing child pornography
material from the internet, contrary to the Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth) and
making available child pornography material to other users of the internet,
contrary to the Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth).
The arrest confirms the commitment of the AFP to protect children from
abuse, including in the online environment.
The maximum penalty for these offences is 10 years imprisonment.
Media enquiries
AFP National Media Team
Phone: (02) 6275 7100
Note to media:
CHILD ABUSE IMAGES, NOT ‘CHILD PORNOGRAPHY’
Use of the phrase ‘child pornography’ actually benefits child sex abusers:
It indicates legitimacy and compliance on the part of the victim and therefore
legality on the part of the abuser
It conjures up images of children posing in ‘provocative’ positions, rather than
suffering horrific abuse
Every child abuse photograph or video sent through the internet captures a situation
where a child has been victimised. This is not pornography.
NEWS 
