http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051227/en_nm/...am_glitter_dc_4
Mon Dec 26, 8:45 PM ET
HANOI (Reuters) - Vietnamese police will formally charge British glam rocker
Gary Glitter with child molestation and drop an additional charge of child rape, his Vietnamese lawyer said on Monday.
Police have said medical tests on girls who alleged they had had sex with the 1970s rock icon, who was arrested last month, led them to look into the more serious charge of raping children which can carry the death penalty.
"The investigation has ended and the charge will still be the initial one, while additional issues were not raised by investigators, probably because of a lack of evidence," Glitter's lawyer Le Thanh Kinh said.
Police in the coastal province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau, where Glitter has been in detention since November 19 after he was arrested while trying to leave the country, could not be reached for comment.
Kinh said findings of the investigation, including the only charge against Glitter, would be handed later this week to the rocker, whose real name is Paul Gadd, to sign before the case is passed to provincial prosecutors for review.
The review of the investigation would last a month and the prosecutors would announce whether to try Glitter, legal sources said.
Last month, Senior Lieutenant-Colonel Nguyen Duc Trinh, who headed the investigation, said medical tests on two girls, one under 13 years of age, had shown evidence of sexual intercourse, but it was not clear with whom.
Glitter has denied allegations that he molested girls as young as 12, insisting he was helping them with their English.
The age of consent in the communist Southeast Asian nation is 16. Glitter could face up to 12 years in jail if found guilty of engaging in sex acts with children.
He was jailed for four months in Britain in 1999 after being found guilty of storing more than 4,000 images of child pornography on his computer.
(Additional reporting by Nguyen Van Vinh)
Shoot the bastard.