A Vietnamese man on the run from Cambodian police for the suspected torture and rape of a child was apprehended by law enforcement officers in Ho Chi Minh City on Wednesday.
Nguyen Thanh Dung, 34, from the southern province of An Giang, was nabbed in District 7, according to C45, the criminal police unit under the Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security.
Dung was identified as the man in several viral video clips that show him abusing different children, believed to be Cambodians.
In one of the videos, Dung appears to be beating a naked boy, reportedly two years old, strangling him and torturing him with a stun gun.
The Cambodia Daily reported on Wednesday that three suspects, including a Dutchman and two Cambodians, had been taken into custody by police in Kompong Cham Province for alleged involvement in the videos, while a fourth suspect remaind at large.
C45 chief Ho Sy Tien told Vietnamese media later the same day that Dung is the fourth suspect Kompong Cham police had been looking for.
Tien added that C45 officers were working in cooperation with their Cambodian counterparts to initiate the hunt for Dung shortly after the video showing him torturing the naked toddler caused widespread outrage.
According to Cambodia Daily, the Dutch national arrested on Tuesday has been identified as Stefan Struik, the CEO of Kamkav, a company with cocoa plantations in Mondolkiri and a palm sugar plant in Kompong Cham.
The two Cambodians, 28-year-old Ret Sothy and Oeu Nat, 25, are his employees.
The Phnom Penh-based newspaper also said Struik was seen in a YouTube video introducing Nguyen Thanh Dung as his boyfriend and naming him Nguyen Dung.
Meanwhile, the Vietnamese Internet community identified a Facebook page belonging to ‘Dung Thanh’ with multiple photos appearing to show Nguyen Thanh Dung posing with Struik.
Cambodia Daily said the arrests of the three suspects in Cambodia, and of Dung in Vietnam, followed complaints from the victim’s parents, who claimed the kid had been raped.
