Reports: Gary Glitter freed from Viet jail

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam -- Former British rock star Gary Glitter has been released early from a Vietnamese prison on a child sexual abuse conviction, local media reports say.

Radio Australia Tuesday quoted Vietnamese reports saying the 64-year-old 1970's glam rocker, whose real name is Paul Francis Gadd, has wrapped up his three-year stretch early and authorities will seek to have him deported.

Glitter was arrested in Ho Chi Minh City in 2005 and charged with committing obscene acts with two girls, aged 11 and 12.

If he returns to Britain, Glitter will be met at the airport by police and required to sign an official sex offender registry, The Daily Telegraph reported. By law, he would have to notify police if he planned to move or change houses and would be banned from owning a computer, surfing the Internet or going near children, authorities said.

The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children is urging the government to bar Glitter from going on any more sex tourism trips if he returns to the country.

"It's not a done deal that he can go wherever he likes given his record," Zoe Hilton, the charity's policy adviser, told the Telegraph.

Copyright 2008 by United Press International.