Law and judiciary

Almost 100 opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) supporters and several dozen members of the Royalist Funcinpec Party in Svay Chek district, Banteay Meanchey province, defected yesterday to the ruling Cambodian People’s Party. Among them were provincial and village-level leaders. ...

Twenty-nine loggers were sent back to Cambodia from Thailand on Sunday after the group was arrested by Thai soldiers while logging rosewood across the border from Banteay Meanchey province, an official said Monday. ...

A representative of 18 vendors in Sihanoukville asked the government for help in reviving the area where they used to live and work, claiming that the half-finished construction sites destroyed the area and any businesses operating there.  ...

Two Chinese nationals were arrested and 72 others were temporarily detained on Friday in a series of coordinated raids carried out by the Interior Ministry to dismantle a suspected cybercrime ring run by Chinese citizens extorting people in their home country, officials said. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen has issued an appeal for government officials to strengthen cooperation to prevent and combat the rampant smuggling of goods in and out of the country, causing the loss of much-needed tax revenue.   ...

Oddar Meanchey provincial police chief Men Ly said yesterday he will launch an investigation into the burning of an opposition CNRP sign during a protest in Samraong City on Friday led by a defector to the ruling CPP. ...

The trial of an unlicensed medic who was charged with murder af­ter allegedly infecting more than 270 people with HIV will begin on Tuesday, a court official said on Fri­day. ...

The Bar Association of the Kingdom of Cambodia (BAKC) will hold its eighth election today at its headquarters in Sen Sok district. ...

An Information Ministry official has been charged with defamation over a Facebook post accusing a CPP senator of being the mistress of a military general, and has been summoned to trial on Monday. ...

An unlicensed health worker charged in Cambodia with murder and other crimes after allegedly causing a mass HIV infection by treating patients with reused needles will be brought to trial next week, sources said. ...

Police in Svay Rieng province said Wednesday that they were still searching for one of two men suspected in a violent attack on an elderly commune chief that stemmed from a drunken fight on Saturday. ...

A new law on the collection and dissemination of statistical data is set to be put to a vote at the National Assembly later this year after being approved by a parliamentary commission Wednesday. ...

Despite Prime Minister Hun Sen’s request for bus owners and cab drivers to not hike prices over the Pchum Ben holiday, passengers were subjected to a familiar price bump this week. ...

The Geneva-based Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders has appealed to the public to urge Cambodian authorities to end their “judicial harassment” of prominent human rights advocate Ny Chakrya, who stands charged with public defamation and attempting to coerce court officials. ...

The number of traffic fatalities during the 2015 Pchum Ben festival was nearly the same as last year’s, dropping just three percent.34 people were killed in road crashes between October 10 and 12, one fewer than the 35 killed during the three-day holiday in 2014. ...

Philippe Broaly, the former French judge and child-protection NGO director who was convicted in May for sexually assaulting boys in his care, had his sentence extended to three years by the Appeal Court on Friday, according to anti-pedophile NGO Action Pour Les Enfants (APLE). ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Friday acquitted a land broker of allegedly defrauding a businessman out of $2.5 million over a 9,000-hectare economic land concession (ELC) in Mondolkiri province that was eventually revoked by the government. ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Friday sentenced two Vietnamese women to five years in prison for attempting to send pseudoephedrine—a common precursor in the synthesis of methamphetamine—to Australia in a box of bras. ...

Both Prum Chan Samnang, a 20-year-old former Smart Axiata employee, and Phy Phirum, a 20-year-old air conditioning technician, were lucky enough to receive a rare “consolidation of sentences” yesterday at Phnom Penh Municipal Court. ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court decided Wednesday to reinvestigate the origins of the doctored treaty that provided the impetus for the arrest of opposition Senator Hong Sok Hour, after the senator’s lawyer told the court that his client did not forge it. ...

A deputy prosecutor at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court has decided not to pursue criminal charges against a fugitive nightclub owner who police say is liable for the deaths of six people killed by a fire at the establishment on September 7. ...

The National Road Safety Committee (NRSC) yesterday pledged to cut deaths on Cambodia’s roads by 50 per cent by 2020, with two new sub-commissions set to be established to help reach that goal. ...

Two dozen ethnic Montagnard Christians who fled Vietnam earlier this year to seek refuge in Cambodia from alleged persecution have volunteered to return home, frustrated with long waits and the dim prospects of being granted asylum, a police official and rights activist in northeastern Cambodia ...

Cambodia’s Phnom Penh Municipal Court has indefinitely postponed the trial on charges of “forgery and incitement” of jailed opposition senator Hong Sok Hour, adjourning again on Wednesday after proceedings resumed following an earlier postponement on Oct. 2. ...