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HANOI - Gary Glitter, a one-time British glam rocker, is set for release Tuesday from his Vietnamese prison where he has spent two years and nine months for child sexual molestation, officials say.
The disgraced 1970s pop star, once famed for his flamboyant bouffant wigs and silver jumpsuits, faces immediate deportation from communist Vietnam to his home country, according to his lawyer Le Thanh Kinh.
Glitter, 64, whose real name is Paul Francis Gadd, was arrested in Vietnam in November 2005 and convicted the following March of committing obscene acts with two girls then aged 11 and 12 in the resort town of Vung Tau.
He was sentenced to three years in jail, the minimum term under Vietnamese law, which was cut by three months as part of national sentence reductions for the traditional Tet Lunar New Year in 2007.
The jail time in Vietnam was a new low point for Glitter, who had fallen from grace decades after he was a king of the "glam pop" era, a time of showmen in platform shoes, sequinned dresses and heavy make-up.
The pop star, who sold more then 20 million records, had long faded into obscurity when he hit the headlines in 1997 after a computer repair shop found his hard-drive was loaded with child pornography.
Glitter was arrested and two years later sentenced to four months' jail, of which he served two.
The judge at his trial said the more than 4,000 images were "of the very, very worst possible type."
Pursued by the British media, Glitter reportedly moved to Cuba, then resettled in Cambodia, where he lived on and off for years before he was expelled in 2002 after reportedly trawling for child sex.
He later returned to Phnom Penh, where he met three Vietnamese prostitutes, according to prosecutors at his trial.
The women came to live with him in a villa in Vung Tau -- a Vietnamese oil industry and resort town with an extensive red-light industry -- where they helped him procure the children for sexual acts.
A British citizen there alerted a London newspaper, which tracked Glitter down and reported that he was living with a teenage girl.
Glitter was arrested at Ho Chi Minh City's international airport on November 19 while trying to board a flight to Thailand.
The former pop star, who paid 2,000 dollars in compensation to the family of each victim, evaded the more serious charge of child rape, which carries a maximum penalty of death by firing squad in Vietnam.
The judge who presided over the closed trial, Hoang Thanh Tung, later called Glitter "sick" and "abnormal," detailing instances of fondling, oral sex and more disturbing sexual acts with the children.
Glitter maintained his innocence and claimed he was teaching the girls English, allowing them to stay overnight because they were scared of ghosts.
After the verdict Glitter, his head shaved except for a grey ponytail and a goatee, blamed a media "conspiracy" as he was bundled into a police van.
Years later his odyssey continues, but not the way he had hoped.
In recent Vietnamese newspaper interviews from his cell at the Z30D Thu Duc prison in southern Binh Thuan province, he announced plans to move to Singapore or Hong Kong after his release and to start recording music again.
Instead, Vietnam will send him back to his home country, his lawyer said.“I paid for the ticket for him," Kinh told AFP last week.
"He's a British citizen. (Vietnam) wants him to go back to the UK."
The British embassy has declined to comment on the case. - AFP/vm
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