TAN DUC, VIETNAM - One-time British glam rocker Gary Glitter was set to be released from a Vietnamese prison and deported Tuesday after two years and nine months behind bars for child sexual molestation.

Glitter, 64, real name Paul Francis Gadd, was arrested in Vietnam in late 2005 and convicted the following year of committing obscene acts with two girls then aged 11 and 12 in the southern resort town of Vung Tau.

His lawyer Le Thanh Kinh has said communist Vietnam would send Glitter back to Britain and that he had bought a plane ticket for his client, a 1970s pop star once famed for his flamboyant bouffant wigs and silver jumpsuits.

The British embassy has declined to comment on the case. Sources at the Home Office in London said if he were to settle in his native country he would be required to sign the sex offenders? register.

Glitter ? who had previously been jailed in Britain for having hardcore child pornography on his computer ? was arrested at Ho Chi Minh City?s international airport on November 19, 2005 while trying to leave for Thailand.

In March 2006 he was sentenced to three years in jail, the minimum term under Vietnamese law, which was cut by three months as part of national sentence reductions for the traditional Tet Lunar New Year in 2007.

The former pop star, who paid 2,000 dollars in compensation to the families of both victims, evaded the more serious charge of child rape, which carries a maximum penalty of death by firing squad in Vietnam.

The judge who presided over the closed trial, Hoang Thanh Tung, afterwards called Glitter ?sick? and ?abnormal,? detailing instances of fondling, oral sex and more disturbing sexual acts with the children.

Glitter during the trial maintained his innocence, blamed a media conspiracy and claimed he was teaching the girls English, allowing them to stay overnight because they were scared of ghosts.