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Human rights worker with United Nations ties, Clarence Dias, caught with child
pornography
BY ALISON GENDAR and NICOLE BODE
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Wednesday, January 21st 2009, 12:29 AM
A high-ranking human rights worker with ties to the United Nations was nabbed
at Kennedy Airport Tuesday with kiddie porn in his suitcase, officials said.
Clarence Dias, 65, president of the International Center for Law in
Development, whose offices are located at the UN, had the smut in his carry-on
bag as he passed through security on his way to a flight bound for Bangkok,
Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said.
Transportation Security Administration officials doing a random bag check
around 8:20a.m. allegedly found a DVD whose cover featured an apparently
underage nude boy and an adult male in Dias' handbag, prosecutors said.
The video's title - "Winner Pub Pattaya" - apparently refers to a beach resort
in Thailand, authorities said. There were also other lewd photographs in the
bag, authorities said.
Dias - who holds a doctorate in law from Bombay University and Cornell Law
School and has taught at Boston College of Law - claimed the porn was for
research, authorities said.
"He admitted it was his - but tried to play it off. He said he was doing
research on how to better make sure kids' rights were not abused," a police
source said. "Yeah, sure. It's always research."
Calls to Dias' office went straight to voicemail Tuesday.
The humanitarian group calls itself "a Third World NGO [nongovernmental
organization] concerned about human rights in the development process."
This is the latest sex scandal to roil the UN.
The agency came under fire in 2002 for turning a blind eye to wide-scale sexual
abuse of West African refugee children by its own aid workers and peacekeepers.
UN workers from nine countries - including Britain and India - were accused of
sexually exploiting children in dozens of refugee camps in war-torn Sierra
Leone, Guinea and Liberia, the internal report found.
Dias was expected to be arraigned last night at Queens Criminal Court on felony
charges of possessing an obscene sexual performance by a child. He could face
up to four years in prison if convicted.
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