HONG KONG -- An American man accused of raping his daughter and posting videos of the abuse online has challenged a U.S. request to extradite him from Hong Kong, his lawyer said Thursday.
Kenneth John Freeman, who fled to China and was arrested while traveling to Hong Kong, will fight extradition to his home country, lawyer Giles Surman said.
Freeman attended a brief court proceeding in Hong Kong Thursday that scheduled the hearing for his challenge for Sept. 10. Wearing a white dress shirt and black pants, Freeman was handcuffed and chained around his waist. He did not speak.
Surman said the hearing on Sept. 10 will take a day but that the judge may not issue a decision on the extradition the same day.
"The judge will decide whether there is enough evidence to order his surrender to the U.S.," Hong Kong government lawyer Wayne Walsh said.
Freeman has been charged in Benton County Superior Court in Washington state with three counts of child rape and jumping bail. He faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment if convicted.
He also faces federal charges of producing and distributing child pornography.
The 44-year-old bodybuilder, who used to be a volunteer reserve sheriff's deputy, had been on the U.S. Marshals Service and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's most-wanted list.
Freeman fled his home in Seattle last year after his 17-year-old daughter told her mother that he had assaulted her four years earlier.
The teenager also went on national television to tell her story, which helped identify her as the victim in a series of child pornography videos on the Internet, according to the U.S. Marshals Service.
Freeman flew from Vancouver, Canada, to Hong Kong in March 2006, then to China, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Chinese authorities helped track down Freeman in the eastern city of Suzhou near Shanghai, where he is believed to have been working as a computer adviser for a U.S.-based company.
Hong Kong authorities arrested Freeman in May at the border with mainland China.
Authorities waited to arrest Freeman in Hong Kong because mainland China does not have an extradition treaty with the United States.
Hong Kong is part of China, but is governed separately and has its own legal system. (AP)
July 19, 2007
Copyright 2005-2006 THE MAINICHI NEWSPAPERS. All rights reserved.
Under the copyright law of Japan, use of all materials on this website, except for personal and noncommercial purposes, is prohibited without the express written permission of the Mainichi Newspapers Co. The copyright of the materials belongs to the Mainichi Newspapers Co. unless stated otherwise.
Company Profile (Related) |
Advertising Rates (Related) |
Contact Us (Related) |
Mainichi Weekly (Related) |
Privacy Statement (Related) |
RSS Feeds (Related)
No comments:
Post a Comment