Judiciary and courts

As garment workers continued to return to their factories Wednesday after several days of strikes that turned deadly last week, some of their employers have wasted no time in suing the unions behind the strikes, demanding compensation. Phnom Penh Municipal Court chief clerk Prak Savouth said ...

Notification that her son is being detained at Correctional Centre 3 in Kampong Cham came as a relief to Touch Sart yesterday, after spending nearly a week wondering whether he was even alive. Since her son, Theng Saroeun, was arrested along with 22 others at demonstrations ...

The whereabouts of 23 people arrested last week during a crackdown on demonstrations in Por Sen Chey district remained unknown yesterday, with prison officials and police refusing to divulge the information to family members and rights groups. ...

A senior member of the Garment Manufacturer’s Association in Cambodia (GMAC) on Sunday endorsed the use of deadly force by military police against striking garment workers, which left five dead and more than 20 with gunshot wounds. “GMAC condemns the use of violence, period,” he ...

The U.N. and local human rights groups have condemned the government’s violent eviction of CNRP supporters from Phnom Penh’s Freedom Park on Saturday, as well as its indefinite ban on public protests in the city. On Saturday, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court also summonsed opposition leaders ...

At 11:30 a.m. Saturday, municipal security guards and men in plainclothes, wielding steel bars, metal pipes, batons, sticks and axes, forcibly cleared hundreds of demonstrators from Phnom Penh’s Freedom Park, where the opposition CNRP has been protesting against the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen ...

Cambodian opposition leaders said Sunday that they will appear at the court upon the summons issued by the Phnom Penh municipal court after a bloody clash on Friday. According to the summons signed by the court’s deputy prosecutor Heang Sopheak, Sam Rainsy and Kem Sokha ...

Cambodia’s opposition leaders Sam Rainsy and Kem Sokha went into hiding Saturday as the government stepped up its crackdown on protests against Prime Minister Hun Sen following deadly violence. A day after police shot dead four people during workers’ protests for higher wages, the government ...

Residents who were forcibly evicted from their homes in Borei Keila on this day two years ago will hold a ceremony today to remind the public of the pain they endured and push for compensation they say is still owed. On January 3, 2012, more than ...

The Pursat Provincial Court on Tuesday charged three men with illegally clearing forest inside a protected wildlife sanctuary, and authorities are still searching for the man they were allegedly working for, officials said Wednesday. Provincial prosecutor Tan Seihak Dechak said the three charged men—Pak Im, 41, ...

Villagers locked in a land dispute with ruling party senator Ly Yong Phat’s Phnom Penh Sugar Company have submitted a petition to the provincial court asking for a cessation of the court’s issuing of summonses and arrest warrants. The court has so far issued 37 summonses, ...

Law and order in Cambodia this year has been a strange mix of the brutal and the bizarre. From horrific murders to the police’s decision to deliver crystal meth to phony hostage-takers during a bank heist, crime has continually made headlines in a year when the ...

Two disabled former soldiers convicted of razing the homes and grabbing the land of 30 rice farmers in Kampot province last year denied the charges during their hearing at the Appeal Court on Thursday. Touch Soeuly, 57, and 11 other members of his Cambodian Disabled Rescue ...

US national Daniel Stephen Johnson was transferred to Prey Sar prison yesterday after being charged on Saturday over the alleged rape of five underage boys – residents of the orphanage he ran without interference from authorities for several months. According to Phnom Penh Municipal Court prosecutor ...

A house in Ratanakkiri owned by a provincial deputy police chief was raided on Saturday, yielding seven cubic metres of luxury timber. Ratanakkiri Provincial Court and Forestry Administration officials carried out the raid on the property where the deputy police chief is the landlord, but he ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Saturday charged Daniel Johnson, an American missionary, with committing indecent acts against five boys under the age of 15 at an orphanage he operated in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district, police said. Johnson, 35, was sent to the court on Wednesday ...

The Ministry of Justice yesterday held the first of what it said would be regular forums soliciting the input of civil society on judicial reforms, and promised a new measure that it maintained would streamline the courts’ workflow. Citing widespread frustration among citizens, Justice Minister Ang ...

Thirty people locked in a land dispute with ruling party senator and sugar tycoon Ly Yong Phat received summonses yesterday to appear in Kampong Speu provincial court. Although the summonses don’t list a complainant, some of those called to appear in court next Tuesday said they ...

A man facing defamation charges was questioned in Kandal Provincial Court yesterday following his comments in a report that alleged tycoon Try Pheap was illegally logging. San Sen was quoted in a Cambodian Human Rights Task Force (CHRTF) report last month that implicated the tycoon in ...

Three alleged members of a money-laundering operation worth more than $11 million who were arrested earlier this year in Phnom Penh have had their cases sent to court and are now awaiting trial, Om Yentieng, head of the Anti-Corruption Unit, said yesterday. The three suspects – ...

KANDAL PROVINCE – At Kandal provincial prison on Monday, about 100 male and female prisoners and pretrial detainees assembled to play games and receive fruit and drinks from rights group Licadho, which is visiting 18 prisons around the country this week in a bid to ...

Two men were arrested and charged on Sunday with smuggling more than 2,000 kilograms of luxury-grade rosewood from Kampong Thom to Siem Reap town, anti-crime officials said yesterday. Thanh Ti, 21, and Viet Thy Thanh, 19, were caught manning a truck transferring 2,400 kilograms of rosewood ...

Authorities issued an arrest warrant last week for the director of a local NGO involved with an operation that allegedly bilked thousands out of money by claiming the company could find them work in South Korea. Warrants for the arrests of Theun Samnang, head of NGO ...

An indigenous Bunong minority community in Mondolkiri province’s Keo Seima district on Wednesday filed a complaint claiming that authorities had destroyed their homes, but authorities allege that the villagers are living on land owned by a private company. Villagers claim that since November, 37 homes in ...