Legal and judicial system

Charges against outspoken Adhoc head of monitoring Chan Soveth are baseless, politically motivated and threaten to undermine human rights work in Cambodia, a coalition of NGOs said yesterday. Soveth, who has been summonsed to court on August 24 over the vague charge of assisting “specific perpetrators”, ...

More than 100 families in Preah Sihanouk province were forcefully removed from their homes yesterday morning by at least 100 armed police officers  who dispersed the crowd by firing shots into the air from AK-47 rifles and spraying villagers with water cannons, accoring to provincial ...

Four Land Management Ministry officials charged with corruption last week were released on bail yesterday, less than five days after arriving at Prey Sar prison for detention ahead of trial, officials said. Srung Leang, director of the prison’s center no. 1, said he received the written release order ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court has summoned Chan Soveth, a long-serving senior investigator at rights group Adhoc, over charges of aiding an unnamed perpetrator in Phnom Penh earlier this year, according to a copy of the citation obtained yesterday. Dated Aug. 9 and sent to Adhoc’s ...

Four officials from the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction arrested last week on bribery charges involving millions of dollars would be freed on bail in the next few days, officials said yesterday. Kuy Bunson, director of the Ministry of Interior’s prisons department, said he had ...

The Appeal Court yesterday began hearing now-incarcerated former Anco Brothers deputy general director Heng Chheang’s appeal against Senator Kok An’s requested Phnom Penh Municipal Court injunction over his property. Chheang, and his wife, Tep Kolap, former Phnom Penh International University director, were convicted and sentenced to ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court has charged four senior officials at the Ministry of of Land Management with corruption and placed them in pretrial detention at Prey Sar prison on Thursday evening, officials said. On Monday, Sa Reth Boramy, deputy director of the ministry’s department of land ...

Clutching bunches of incense, mouths moving in tandem, those gathered before the Preah Ang Dang Keu Shrine on Sisowath Boulevard late last month migth have passed for any group of supplicants save for a notable exception: The prayer was aimed at the judiciary. When supporters of ...

Two local human rights groups filed lawsuits yesterday at the Ratanakiri Provincial Court accusing commune and village officials of defamation and intimidation after they disrupted land-rights training session last month. On July 26, a group of armed officials stopped Adhoc and the Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR) ...

Four officials from the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction accused of land dispute-related corruption were arrested on Monday by the Anti-Corruption Unit. An official who declined to be named told the Post yesterday that Sa Reth Boramy, deputy general director of General Department ...

Representatives of 44 families embroiled in a violent land dispute in Banteay Meanchey province say they are living like squatters and haven’t been granted long-promised property in the area. Kao Ty, a defence lawyer for the families, said that his clients are among the more than ...

A trio of international NGOs representing lawyers and journalists added their voice last week to the mounting calls for the government to release radio station owner Mam Sonando and drop all charges against him “immediately and unconditionally.” Authorities arrested Mr. Sonando, owner of the independent Beehive ...

The Preah Sihanouk Provincial Court has ordered villagers living on disputed land in Sihanoukville to leave the area by Thursday, according to a statement released by th the court yesterday. “We wish to inform people living in Muoy commune’s Phuom Bei village that on August 9, ...

In a 10-page filing, the lawyer for independent radio station owner Mam Sonando yesterday urged the Phnom Penh Municipal Court to release his 71-year-old client on bail, arguing that he is no flight risk and the legal arguments for keeping him are flimsy. But while ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Thursday charged six people, including a provincial director of water resources and a commune chief, for their involvement in creating illegal fishing reservoirs in Kompong Thom province. “They were charged with clearing a flooded forest for encroachment and illegally constructing ...

The Koh Kong Provincial Court yesterday postponed the hearing of a controversial case against a Thai-owned sugar company that more than 200 families alleged had taken their land for the company’s sugar plantations, lawyers and village representatives said yesterday. Ny Sorphornneary, the lawyer for the families, ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Wednesday questioned six people, including a provincial director of water resources and a commune chief, over allegations that they cleared part of a flooded forest in Kompong Thom to illegally construct reservoirs on the Tonle Sap. Earlier this month, military ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday charged two government officials and four farmers from Kampong Thom province’s Stoung district with encroachment onto protected land after they allegedly bulldozed a flooded forest that was designated as a protected fish hatchery, police and NGO officials said. ...

While Mam Sonando lay in a cramped Prey Sar prison cell yesterday, sweating out a fever, some 100 members of the Association of Democrats burned incense and kneeled in prayer at the Preah Ang Dang Keu shrine, calling for the outspoken Beehive Radio director’s release. With ...

More than a hundred supporters of imprisoned Beehive Radio owner Mam Sonando gathered at the Preah Ang Dang Keu Shrine in front of the Royal Palace yesterday morning to offer prayers for his release. Sporting shirts printed with photos of Mr. Sonando, the group lit candles ...

Ministry of Interior officials announced yesterday that three more villagers accused of involvement in a “secessionist plot” in Kratie province turned themselves in and confessed their guilt on Saturday, taking advantage of the prime minister’s offer of immunity for those who agree to act as ...

Two more people in Pursat province’s Veal Veng district have been arrested in conjunction with what local authorities are calling a secessionist plot, while provincial authorities threatened to demolish more homes if residents do not leave a disputed area, officials said yesterday. Deputy provincial court prosecutor ...

The Kompong Chhnang Provincial Court questioned four villagers among 12 summoned for questioning over a land dispute in Samakki Meanchey district, which has pitted some 80 local families against the owner of a private company they accuse of taking their land. While the dispute stems from alleged land grabbing, ...

Two more people in Pursat province’s Veal Veng district were arrested Tuesday in connection with what local authorities are calling a secessionist plot, a forestry official said yesterday. Veal Veng district forestry chief Thorn Bunthet said that Kuy Van, 55, and Leng Chhoeuk, 50, were arrested ...