Law and judiciary

A Cambodian NGO director who on Saturday took about 40 of his primary- and high-school students on a trip to a disputed border area in Svay Rieng province was beaten by Vietnamese civilians and imprisoned overnight, officials said Sunday. ...

Police in southern Vietnam seized 387 kilograms of elephant tusks last week after the ivory passed through the Prek Chak international border checkpoint in Kampot province, the state-run Viet Nam News newspaper reported Friday. ...

Chan Vichet, a representative of the former Dey Krahorm community, whose homes were bulldozed in 2009 to make way for development in Phnom Penh, was acquitted on Friday of defamation and forgery charges brought against him in 2005 by fellow evictees. ...

Warnings from civil society groups that they will urge citizens to vote against any politician who supports the draft law on associations and NGOs have drawn a stern rebuke from the ruling Cambodian People’s Party. ...

Two Chinese tourists were arrested in Phnom Penh on Saturday for using a drone to film the Royal Palace, but were released with a warning Sunday, according to a senior police official. ...

A man who entered a Phnom Penh high school and slapped a teenager who had been fighting with his daughter told the municipal court on Friday that he was mentally ill and had lied about working at the Council of Minis­ters, hoping it would protect ...

Local officials apologized yesterday to the Vietnamese owners of a rubber plantation in this northwestern province, after a dispute with local residents spiraled out of control a day earlier with angry villagers setting a company building aflame.  ...

Anti-drug police on Saturday arrested 20 young people for smoking shisha at a karaoke parlor in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district, officials said Sunday. ...

The Appeal Court on Friday upheld a Phnom Penh Municipal Court decision to throw out the case of an NGO staffer who claims his life was threatened by security guards working for property magnate Khun Sear at a disputed site in Tuol Kok district. ...

Cambodian-American businessman Richer San, one of four men accused of defrauding a Phnom Penh dentist of $1 million, sat alone at the stand in the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Friday as lawyers delivered their closing arguments. ...

The human rights non-governmental organizations (NGOs) Licado and Adhoc both say they will not attend Wednesday’s consultation workshop on the controversial draft Law on Associations and Non-Governmental Organizations (LANGO) hosted by the National Assembly. ...

A popular chief monk who was found dead on Monday at his pagoda in Kompong Speu province committed suicide after becoming overburdened by debt from a road construction project he had undertaken, a police official and senior monk said Thursday. ...

Two days after a platoon leader in Mondolkiri accused soldiers from Kratie of pointing their weapons at his men in order to free a group of suspected illegal loggers from Vietnam, two of the military’s most senior officials on Thursday said they were unaware of ...

Forestry officials in Oddar Meanchey province on Wednesday discovered a timber processing plant and thousands of lengths of luxury-grade wood in a remote forested area populated only by soldiers, officials said Thursday. ...

Seventeen young people were charged by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court and released on bail yesterday after they were caught allegedly falsifying documents while taking a Korean language test administered as a precursor to working in South Korea, police said.​ ...

A Council of Ministers official was arrested in Phnom Penh on Wednesday after he showed up at his daughter’s high school and slapped her classmate following a fight between the two teenagers, police and witnesses said Thursday. ...

A rights group and journalist organization on Thursday slammed a lawmaker from Cambodia’s ruling party for barring an opposition MP from addressing the media with his concerns over a controversial draft law on nongovernmental organizations currently under review by parliament. ...

A ruling party lawmaker says pro-democracy and rights groups staging protests against a draft law at the National Assembly are trying to “topple the government.” On Wednesday, Chheang Vun, a lawmaker for the Cambodian People’s Party, said three days of protests over the draft are ...

Nine union officials arrested during a protest outside an electronics factory in Takeo province Tuesday afternoon were released that night after being “educated” and agreeing to obey the law, police said. ...

Traffic deaths in Cambodia during the first six months of 2015 increased from the same period last year, though the total number of road accidents in the Kingdom plummeted, according to traffic police data. A total of 1,229 traffic deaths were recorded this year out ...

Royal Cambodian Armed Forces soldiers from Kratie province surrounded a platoon from Mondolkiri on Tuesday night in order to free a group of Vietnamese men who had been detained on suspicion of illegal logging, a military official said Wednesday. ...

The head of the Interior Ministry’s immigration department called on provincial governors and police chiefs on Wednesday to help rein in illegal immigration as the number of Vietnamese migrants doubled over a five-year period. ...

Deputy Prime Minister Sok An will respond to a summons to appear before the National Assembly in writing rather than in person, a spokesman said Wednesday, with an opposition lawmaker saying the move could prompt a bid to impeach Mr. An. ...

After one of the alleged leaders of a busted mufti-milliondollar international drug smuggling ring slipped through a police dragnet in Stung Treng province on Tuesday, an anti-drug official said an information leak likely helped the man escape. ...