Progress in Interpol paedophile hunt

An international appeal launched by Interpol to identify a paedophile has received about 200 responses from the public.

The man posted around 200 photographs on the internet which show him abusing 12 young boys. The images were taken in Vietnam and Cambodia.

Anders Persson, a Swedish police officer in charge of Interpol's child abuse images team, said 200 messages were received within 12 hours of the images of the man's face being released of its website.

He said: "We have had a lot of responses and they are coming from all over the world."

Some of the messages include detailed information such as names and addresses, he said. Others are simply names or sightings of people met on holiday.

It is the first time Interpol has taken the step of issuing such an appeal. It will now forward the information about suspects to the countries concerned for local police to check out.

Although the original photographs were digitally altered by either the man or an accomplice to disguise his face, specialists in Germany's federal police agency, working with Interpol's Trafficking in Human Beings Unit, have been able to produce an identifiable image of him.

But despite global efforts to identify and locate the man, through Interpol's network of 186 bureaux, his identity and nationality remain unknown.

The images show a white man, with dark, unkempt, receding hair. In one of the pictures he is wearing glasses and in another he is smiling.

It is thought the photographs were taken in 2002 or 2003.

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