Law and judiciary

The government’s Apsara authority will join forces with the Preah Vihear administration to establish a joint committee to prevent illegal logging and to manage state land in the protected areas around Koh Ker, officials said yesterday. ...

Dozens of activist monks rallied on Sunday at Wat Stung Meanchey to protest the pagoda’s decision to defrock a fellow monk for allegedly throwing Buddha statues into a dirty pond, claiming that he was framed because he is Khmer Krom and is known for supporting ...

A Vietnamese woman imprisoned on child sex trafficking charges in 2009 received a humanitarian royal pardon last month, but only after she had been dead for more than a month, the rights NGO Licadho said yesterday. ...

Rights group Licadho says it is canceling its annual prison visits on international Human Rights Day, which this year falls on Thursday, for the first time in two decades in protest over what it says are new government restrictions. ...

When 112 families gathered to demonstrate for four hours in front of the Ratanakkiri provincial court last Wednesday, most of their invective was directed toward the court itself, and toward someone they termed “a rich man from Phnom Penh,” a Mr. Heang Socheat, whom, they ...

Around 100 people upset over the installation of new electricity transmission towers by the national electricity company, Electricite du Cambodge (EdC), protested on Friday morning in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district to demand a halt in the placement of the towers, or suitable compensation, protesters and officials ...

Private utility companies that run their cables along overhead lines in central Phnom Penh will now have to bury them beneath the city’s streets, and pay to do so, City Hall announced on Friday.   ...

As expected, opposition leader Sam Rainsy failed to show up at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court for a scheduled questioning date on Friday, as he remains abroad after being hit with a slew of criminal charges and an arrest warrant in recent weeks. ...

An Australian fugitive wanted by Thai authorities for the murder of a former Hells Angels member was arrested in Phnom Penh on Thurs­day and is being held by immigration police, officials said Friday. ...

Thai police believe that an Australian murder suspect is in Cambodia after fleeing arrest in Thailand, according to Australian and Thai media reports, although Cambodian authorities contacted on Thursday said they had no knowledge of the fugitive. ...

Twenty-eight warehouse workers, including some known gang members, were arrested by military police in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district on Wednesday night for their involvement in the severe beating of a garment worker, officials said on Thursday.   ...

Convicted tycoon Thong Sarath yesterday began an appeal of his June conviction for possessing and using illegal weapons.He was arrested in April after allegedly masterminding the assassination of another construction magnate, Ung Meng Cheu, in November last year. ...

An unlicensed doctor was sentenced to 25 years in prison yesterday after being found guilty by Battambang Provincial Court of “torture with aggravating circumstances” for infecting hundreds of people with HIV.Yem Chroeum, 56, stared at the ground as presiding judge Yich Chheanavy read out the ...

More than 200 people living on a contested plot of land in Ratanakkiri province on Thursday lodged a petition with the provincial court calling for the release of three community leaders who were convicted and jailed on Wednesday over a dispute with a wealthy businessman, ...

Dozens of protesters in rural Cambodia broke through a gate and tried to push their way into a provincial court, which had detained three villagers in a land dispute in the northeastern part of the country. More than 170,000 families across the country were adversely ...

Phnom Penh Municipal Court has issued a summons for opposition leader Sam Rainsy to appear in January, to answer court questions in a new defamation case. The court actions against Sam Rainsy come despite widespread condemnation by the international community and fears that Cambodia’s upcoming ...

Fast approaching six months since its creation, a special commission to investigate the cold-case killings of three union figures, including Free Trade Union president Chea Vichea, has nothing to report. ...

National Assembly President Heng Samrin has become the latest government official to accuse opposition leader Sam Rainsy of defamation, with a lawyer for the ex-president filing a complaint against Mr. Rainsy over false claims that the 1980s communist regime sentenced King Norodom Sihanouk to death. ...

French investigators probing the 2012 murder of French national Laurent Vallier and his four children have returned to Cambodia to interview three suspects, a police official said on Wednesday.    ...

The Phnom Penh municipal government has rejected a request from NGOs to mark international Human Rights Day on December 10 with a march from the National Assembly to Freedom Park, claiming the walk would pose a threat to public security. ...

After writing to Prime Minister Hun Sen in July asking him to order an investigation into the sand dredging taking place in Koh Kong province, CNRP lawmaker Son Chhay on Wednesday accused the prime minister of not fully addressing the issues in his letter of ...

Residents living next to a sewage canal in Chomchao commune are concerned about their safety after the walls containing the canal and the ground around it began to collapse when contractors began work on a nearby construction site. ...

Five months after Vietnam pledged to fill in three large ponds its citizens illegally dug half a kilometer inside Cambodian territory in Ratanakkiri province, CNRP lawmakers say the reservoirs remain untouched. ...

An arrest warrant was issued on Tuesday for an assistant of opposition leader Sam Rainsy who helps run his popular Facebook page and is allegedly responsible for producing the video in which now-jailed Senator Hong Sok Hour presents a forged treaty. ...