'No guarantee' that Glitter's bail bid will succeed

There is no guarantee that former rocker Gary Glitter’s lawyers will succeed in bailing him out of jail, where he’s being held on suspicion of having sex with underage girls, police said today.

Glitter, 61, is being held at Phuoc Co prison outside the southern coastal town of Vung Tau for at least three months on suspicion he committed “obscene acts with a child,” punishable by up to 12 years in prison.

The ex-rocker has denied all allegations of sex with minors, and has not been formally charged in a court.

Today’s Liberated Saigon newspaper reported that Glitter’s lawyer, Le Thanh Kinh, had submitted an application to post $40,000 (€33,000) bail to get Glitter out of detention.

Kinh could not be reached for comment. Police and prosecutors refused to confirm the report.

However, Lt. Col. Nguyen Duc Trinh, deputy head of the police investigation department in the southern province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau, said willingness to post bail would not mean automatic release for Glitter.

“In Vietnam, you can’t just apply and pay for bail to be released. There’s a lot of other procedures required,” he said.

Among other things, police and prosecutors would have to make a determination that Glitter is not a flight risk, and that his release would not affect the continuing criminal investigation.

Glitter, whose real name is Paul Francis Gadd, was stopped on November 19. at Ho Chi Minh city’s international airport as he tried to board a flight to Bangkok amid allegations that he had sex with minors, including a 12-year-old girl.

Today, he met with British consular officials for a third time at the prison.

Glitter, his face partly covered by a black baseball cap, made no comment as he was led to the 15-minute meeting. Consular officials declined to discuss details of the talks.

Sexual contact with someone under age 16 carries varying penalties in Vietnam, depending on the charge. The maximum punishment for child rape is death by firing squad, and police have said sex with a child under 13 is considered rape.

“To accuse him of raping children, we need more time for investigation and to gather evidence,” Trinh said. “But now we only accuse him of lewd acts with a child, and we are launching an investigation of that.”

Glitter, who won fame as a flamboyant glam rocker in the 1970s, is perhaps best known for Rock and Roll (Part 2), which is still frequently played at sporting events.

He was convicted in Britain in 1999 of possessing child pornography and served half of a four-month jail term. He later went to Cambodia and was permanently expelled in 2002, but Cambodian officials did not specify any crime or file charges.