Cablegate: Two New Convictions Under Canada's Sex Tourism Law

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OO RUEHGA RUEHHA RUEHMT RUEHQU RUEHVC
DE RUEHOT #1468 3241800
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 191800Z NOV 08
FM AMEMBASSY OTTAWA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 8750
INFO RUCNCAN/ALL CANADIAN POSTS COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEHBO/AMEMBASSY BOGOTA 1329
RUEHML/AMEMBASSY MANILA 0055
RUEHPF/AMEMBASSY PHNOM PENH 0101
RUEHPU/AMEMBASSY PORT AU PRINCE 0165

UNCLAS OTTAWA 001468

SIPDIS

STATE FOR G/TIP, DRL, AND WHA/CAN

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PHUM PGOV HA CA
SUBJECT: TWO NEW CONVICTIONS UNDER CANADA'S SEX TOURISM LAW

1. (U) Summary. Canada secured two new sex tourism convictions in
November under Criminal Code amendments that now permit police to
charge Canadians for sex crimes against children overseas. At least
one other case in is the works for alleged abuses in Cambodia,
Colombia, and the Philippines. End Summary.

GUILTY
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2. (U) Quebec police arrested Canadian former aid workers Denis
Rochefort and Armand Huard in Quebec City in February on charges of
abusing boys in an orphanage in Les Cayes, Haiti between December
2006 and March 2007. Rochefort pled guilty on November 14 to sexual
assault charges against six Haitian minors and received a two year
jail sentence, followed by three years of probation. On November
17, Huard pled guilty to ten counts of sexual assault of eight minor
Haitian children and received a three year jail sentence.

EXPANDING COVERAGE
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3. (U) Parliament enacted child sex tourism amendments to the
Criminal Code that came into force in May 1997 and July 2002. The
provisions now allow police to arrest and prosecute Canadians in
Canada for sexual offences against children in foreign countries in
cases in which the foreign state where an offence allegedly occurred
does not prosecute an accused Canadian. The charges carry a maximum
penalty of 14 years imprisonment. The authority to arrest and
prosecute cases falls within provincial (not federal) jurisdiction.
4. (U) The latest convictions bring the total number of
extraterritorial child sex tourism convictions in Canada to three.
Donald Bakker, the first Canadian charged under the revised law,
pled guilty in 2005 and received a ten year prison sentence for
sexually abusing children in Cambodia. Police in British Columbia
have also laid charges against Kenneth Robert Klassen for child sex
crimes in Cambodia, Colombia, and the Philippines, but that case has
not yet gone to trial.
WILKINS

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