Plot Thickens Over Cambodian Dirty Dancing Arrests

The five British expats charged with pornography and organising lewd dancing at a Cambodian party are now denying any knowledge of the images and insisting they weren’t in the photos.

The five charged yesterday are all British expats living in Siem Reap, and have been warned they may be kept in prison for at least six months before their trial. If they're convicted, they could be jailed for another 12 months.. All five Britons have protested their innocence and are claiming they are not featured in any of the so-called pornographic images of simulated sex in the form of a dance. The majority of the 100 or so partygoers were expats, with a few tourists mixed in with the crowd.

Since the police raid on the party and the following arrests became world news, it’s been revealed the party was taking place in a private villa, used as a stop-off point on one of Siem Reap’s regular pub crawls for younger expats. The mother of one of the accused has since told the media her son was forced to sign papers written in the Khmer language. He wasn’t offered a translator and has no idea what he’s signed. Apparently, the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office is assisting five British men in Cambodia and giving support to their families in the UK.

To add to the confusion, a representative of Siem Reap’s Anti-Human Trafficking and Juvenile Protection Department is on record following his conversation with AFP in which he said the arrests had been made because activities at the party were in contravention of Cambodia’s culture. In spite of a spate of international media coverage of the story, no underage partygoers have been identified and human trafficking wasn’t an issue, nor has Cambodia’s official definition of pornography merited a full description.