Vietnam to hear Glitter appeal on June 15

HANOI, May 30 (Reuters) A Vietnam court has rescheduled an appeal hearing of disgraced British ''glam rocker'' Gary Glitter over his three-year sentence for molesting children to June 15, his lawyer today said.

Le Thanh Kinh said by telephone that his client would be moved from a detention centre in the resort town of Vung Tau the same day for a one-day hearing of his appeal at the Supreme Court in Ho Chi Minh City.

The appeal hearing was previously scheduled for May 19.

Glitter, who turned 62 on May 8, has been imprisoned in the southern province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau since last November.

On March 3, the faded pop star was found guilty after a one-day, closed trial of molesting two 11-year-old girls in the resort town of Vung Tau. The judge said the singer would be deported from Vietnam after serving the sentence.

Born Paul Francis Gadd, Glitter rose to fame in the 1970s with pop songs and a flamboyant hairstyle.

Glitter, already registered as a sex offender in Britain after a 1999 child pornography conviction, was arrested at Ho Chi Minh City airport in November 2005 while trying to leave Vietnam.

REUTERS SY PM1553