Gary Glitter to leave jail this month

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HANOI, Vietnam, Aug. 4 (UPI) -- British pop star and convicted child molester Gary Glitter is to be released from a Vietnamese prison this month, an official said.

Glitter, 63, is serving a three-year sentence at the Thu Duc prison in Binh Thuan province for committing obscene acts with two girls, ages 10 and 11.

He was arrested in November 2005 at Ho Chi Minh airport as he attempted to leave Vietnam.

Prison representative Chu Xuan Mau told The Scotsman newspaper: "According to Vietnamese law, Glitter will be freed on Aug. 19. The decision on his release will be read before him that day. It will be signed by the director of the prison."

Glitter was also ordered to pay the girls' families about $360, the newspaper said.

The singer -- whose real name is Paul Francis Gadd -- was convicted in the United Kingdom in 1999 of possessing child pornography in a separate incident and is already registered on the U.K. sex offenders' registry, The Scotsman said.

"I have an incomplete album that I want to finish. I have been thinking about the plan during my days in jail," Sky News quoted Glitter as telling the state-run Vietnamese newspaper, People's Public Security, in June.

The Vietnamese publication also revealed Glitter was then mulling over the possibility of moving to Singapore or Hong Kong upon his release.