ELECTIONS '98
COMMENTARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ARCHIVES

Lanka seeks Interpol help in Clarke case

The Sri Lankan police today called in the International Criminal Police Organisation to investigate allegations that British science fiction author Arthur C Clarke had sex with young local boys in the past 42 years.

The police said they asked Interpol's London branch for help even as the 80-year-old author, who has made Sri Lanka his home since 1956, denied sexual relations with teenage boys.

The Sri Lankan police are trying to obtain a copy of a taped interview the Sunday Mirror, a British newspaper, says it had with Clarke, in which the sci-fi guru is alleged to have admitted to a life of paedophilia.

''We wanted to send officers to London to get a copy of the tape as well as interview the two journalists who wrote the article,'' a police official said. ''But it is the cost factor that is holding us back.''

Deputy Inspector-General M S M Nizam said they spent two-and-a-half hours recording a statement from Clarke at his home in the fashionable diplomatic quarter of Barnes Place last week.

''We are working with an open mind,'' said Nizam. ''We have some other clues up our sleeves but I am not at liberty to discuss them in public. The investigation is proceeding.''

He denied a news agency report which quoted him as saying that there was no evidence to suggest that Clarke was a paedophile. ''I did not say such a thing that there is no evidence against Clarke,'' Nizam said. ''All I said is that we are keeping an open mind and continuing the investigation. We have also sent the reports to the attorney general for his advice.''

Nizam made it clear the police inquiry was continuing despite the denials by Clarke and three men who were quoted in the Sunday Mirror article as having said they had sexual relations with the British author.

Clarke was to have been knighted during a visit to Colombo by Britain's Prince Charles in February, but the science fiction guru asked that the investiture ceremony be postponed ''to avoid embarrassment to his royal highness''.

In a statement issued in February, Clarke described the allegations against him as nonsense and said he was contemplating legal action against the Sunday Mirror.

UNI

Tell us what you think of this report