I did some digging and I bet the parser assumes the document uses UTF-8 (since you didn't specify otherwise), and that your document is not in UTF-8. Try providing the appropriate encoding. The underlying parser (expat) pays attention to the encoding parameter in the XML declaration, so it might be as easy as specifying it. 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>

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In reply to Re: XML::Simple and encoding by ikegami
in thread XML::Simple and encoding by Girzi

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