Rocker Gary Glitter faces up to 12 years in a Vietnamese jail

Rocker Gary Glitter faces up to 12 years in a Vietnamese jail if convicted on child molestation charges to be filed on Saturday, an official said."Gary will be charged with engaging in 'perverse activities with children'," the Ba Ria Vung Tau province official said.Glitter was due to be formally charged on Friday, but the official, who declined to be named, said it was delayed owing to administrative procedures.

Glitter, whose real name is Paul Francis Gadd, has denied allegations that he molested girls as young as 12 and insisted he was just helping them with their English.

The age of consent in Vietnam is 16 and sex with minors is punishable by up to 12 years in jail.Authorities said on Thursday that Glitter, 61, could be detained for up to four months in the southern resort town of Vung Tau while police continued their investigation.

"However, we are seriously considering allowing him bail because there is no way he can withstand conditions in the detention centre for that period," the official said.

He said conditions at the detention centre were not pleasant, with detainees sleeping on concrete floors and a shortage of water for showers.Authorities have not given details of their investigation, but state-owned newspapers said this week police had identified 10 girls who admitted to having had sex with Glitter. One of the girls was 12 years old.

Glitter was sentenced to four months in jail in Britain in 1999 after being found guilty of storing more than 4,000 images of child pornography on the hard drive of his computer.After his release, he left Britain for Cuba and then later turned up in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Child rights activists hounded him out of Cambodia twice and had his name put on an entry blacklist, although Glitter filed lawsuits last year fighting the deportation orders.Vietnamese newspapers have reported Glitter had been in Vietnam for about a year, reports the Reuters. I.L.