Australian authorities are looking into the possible extradition of a 68-year-old man, arrested recently in Siem Reap, who is wanted for alleged kidnapping and torture in Queensland in 2007.

Fugitive Guido James Eglitis was arrested on October 23 along with New Zealand national Brett Michael Hastie, 44, for the alleged September 29 robbery and assault of British man David Scotcher, who has reportedly fled the country in fear for his life.

Queensland privacy laws forbid police from naming subjects of arrest warrants, but in an email yesterday, police there confirmed they are “making enquiries in relation to the possible extradition of a 68-year-old man in relation to a deprivation of liberty investigation from the South Brisbane area in 2007”.

Eglitis was charged in 2007 by a Brisbane court together with an accomplice over the abduction of a 58-year-old businessman in the city’s south.

According to media reports, Eglitis impersonated an Australian Federal Police officer during the kidnapping, which saw the victim snatched from a carpark, thrown into a van and later tied to a chair and detained.

The man eventually escaped. Though charged with kidnapping, Eglitis appears to have fled the country while on bail.

Major General Uk Hai Sela, investigations chief at the Ministry of Interior’s Immigration Department, said he had yet to receive any extradition requests in regard to Eglitis, which, he said, would go through his office.

ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY CHHAY CHANNYDA