A convicted Dutch paedophile and former banker, Pieter Ceulen, 60, is believed to be in Siem Reap after fleeing Europe this week, just two days before an Antwerp court handed him long prison sentence for child sex crimes.
According to Belgian media sources, the Antwerp criminal court yesterday sentenced Pieter Ceulen to nineteen years in prison. The 60-year-old Dutch businessman who is believed to also hold Belgian citizenship was not in court for the sentencing, and the court ordered his immediate arrest.
Ceulen was arrested in the summer of 2012 by local police in Antwerp, after a tip from the FBI. Police found an enormous amount of child pornography on his computer.
The criminal court found it proven that children in both the Philippines and Cambodia had been sexually abused, including his own three foster daughters. He had also filmed the abuse and shared the films with other pedophiles. The man had 700 gigabytes of child pornography in his possession, a collection on which he had been working for fifteen years. In the court proceedings, Ceulen hoped for understanding because he was abused as a 12-year-old at a boarding school he attended.
Ceulen was spotted a few days ago in Brussels Airport. “He wants to evade clear to his punishment,” said the prosecutor this morning after the court had given the 19 years’ imprisonment. The court has ordered the immediate arrest of the 60-year-old man.
According to local information, Ceulen is a regular visiting to Siem Reap where he is believed to own a luxury villa and to have close connections with a local boutique hotel.
Sources say he is a well-known figure in Siem Reap, where he was reported to be in the process of building an orphanage. In Belgium he sponsored museums, and in 2001 he even donated 25,000 Euro to the Antwerp police to build a child-friendly interrogation room for sex abuse victims.
More information here.