Forests and forestry
Forest products
Killer in Chut Wutty Case Walks Free Six Months Later
Rann Boroth, the only man convicted in the double killing six months ago of the country’s leading environmental activist, Chut Wutty, and military police officer, walked free from prison on Friday after the Koh Kong Provincial Court issued an order for his release. On October ...
Protected forest reclassified as private land
The entirety of three protected forests are now classified as private land, an investigation from rights group Adhoc has found, along with tens of thousands of additional hectares of what has once been state public land In three cases, Adhoc’s findings show that entire protected forests ...
Families Claim Officials Extort Fees at Checkpoints
More than 30 families living in Pursat province’s Dangkeab village have filed complaints with their village chief against environmental officials, whom they claim extorted money from them to pass illegal checkpoints as they transported firewood from a nearby forest to the village, authorities said yesterday. “Since ...
Advocacy Group Slams Murder Case 'Hush Up'
Reporters Without Borders has joined mounting criticism of the government’s handling of the April 26 murder of environmental activist Chut Wutty. On Monday, a security guard was convicted of accidentally killing the officer officially blamed for the activist’s death. “How convenient,” the Paris-based advocacy group said in a ...
Global Witness Adds to Criticism of Chut Wutty Murder Case
Environment rights group Global Witness yesterday joined the call for an independent investigation into the April 26 murder of conservation activist Chut Wutty following the conviction of a security guard in the case. On Monday the Koh Rong Provincial Court sentenced Rann Boroth, a security guard ...
Killer in Chut Wutty Case Could Be Free Within Days
The Koh Kong Provincial Court yesterday convicted a private security guard of accidentally killing the military police officer who allegedly shot dead the country’s most prominent environmental activist, Chut Wutty, and sentenced him to two years in prison. The presiding judge, Kham Sophary, then immediately suspended ...
Wutty Case wraps with sentencing
At the close of a case that remained shrouded in controversy until the end, Koh Kong Provincial Court yesterday found former security guard Ran Boroth guilty of the unintentional killing of military police officer In Rattana, the man on whom authorities pinned the murder of ...
Military Figure Re-Emerges as Witness in Slain Journalist's Case
The court investigating the murder of a journalist has questioned a notorious former Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) colonel, who was last heard of serving a 10-year prison sentence for attempted murder, a court official said yesterday. The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court has this week questioned a ...
Commerce Official Denies Luxury Wood 'Logs' Exported to China
A Commerce Ministry official yesterday denied that Cambodia was exporting luxury wood logs to China, insisting that any wood leaving the country was in a “processed” form. The China Customs data also states that each year, just under 10,000 cubic meters of “logs” and about ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/commerce-official-denies-luxury-wood-logs-exported-to-china/
More questioned in journo slaying
The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court has summonsed for questioning Kim Seanglay, a military policeman who was the subject of one of slain journalist Hang Serei Oudom’s articles on the illegal timber trade, Chhay Thi, an investigator for the rights group Adhoc, said yesterday. According to their ...
Verdict in Wutty case delayed
An expected verdict in the unintentional murder case of the man accused of shooting slain environmentalist Chut Wutty’s killer was delayed at Koh Kong Provincial Court yesterday because the presiding judge was ill. Neang Boratino, Koh Kong provincial coordinator for the rights group Adhoc, said a ...
Court Questions Officials Over Slain Journalist
The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court yesterday questioned four people- including a military police official and a police officer- in relation to the killing of journalist Hang Serei Odom, whose body was discovered hacked to death last month in the trunk of his car,a court official and ...
Cambodia's Luxury Wood Trade to China Revealed
Thousands of cubic meters of luxury wood is being shipped from Cambodia to China each year, according to official Chinese import documents shown to The Cambodia Daily. According to the data, some 36,000 cubic meters of logs under the “rosewood” category have been recorded entering China ...
Court calls slain journo's family
Three members of the family of murdered journalist Hang Seri Oudom will appear in Ratanakkiri provincial court on Wednesday, according to their lawyer. Oudom, who exposed illegal logging in the area for the Virakchun Khmer newspaper, disappeared last month when he left his house at night ...
Details on cancelled concessions sought
A week after Prime Minister Hun Sen announced that he would be cancelling an unknown number of economic land concessions in Prey Lang forest, activists called for details on the annulled concessions, saying such revocations would be meaningless unless they could be policed. On September ...
Criticism Continues Over Chut Wutty Murder Case
Environmental protection group Global Witness has added its voice to the growing criticism of the Koh Kong Provincial Court’s decision to end its investigation int the murder of environmental activist Chut Wutty. The decision to drop the case “can only be described by as the latest ...
Court Drops Investigation Into Killing of Activist Chut Wutty
The Koh Kong Provincial Court yesterday said it had dropped its investigation into the killing of environmental activist Chut Wutty, allegedly by a now-deceased military police officer in April. The court made the surprise announcement during the tril of Rann Boroth, who took the stand yesterday for the ...
Court drops Wutty case
Five months after the fatal shooting of forestry activist Chut Wutty, Koh Kong Provincial Court dropped his case yesterday morning, saying they would only be looking into the shooting of the man who allegedly killed Wutty – a trial that wound up lasting less than ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012100559135/National-news/court-drops-wutty-case.html
Report Shows Advanced Illegal Timber Trade
Cambodia is among the tropical countries whose forests are being cleared using increasingly advanced methods to feed a growing global trade in illegal timber worth at least $30 billion a year, according to a new report. The report, Green carbon, black trade, a joint effort by ...
Hunters and Hunted
Unable to effectively police the Cardamoms alone, the Cambodian government partners itself with several international NGOs. The forests directly north of Highway 48 arc patrolled with the help of Wildlife Alliance. Beginning in 2002 with two ranger stations, Wildlife Alliance now operates six outposts in the ...
More R'kiri Journalists Threatened Amid Illegal Timber Trade
Just two weeks after a journalist’s bludgeoned corpse was discovered in Ratanakkiri province, a human rights group yesterday identified two more recent cases of violence or intimidation against reporters in the northeastern province. The report from Adhoc said the pressure from local journalists has occurred alongside an increase ...
US Says Army Truck in Crash Not a Donation
An American-made army truck that was allegedly used to smuggle illegal timber through SIem Reap province, and which crashed and killed a family of three on Friday, was not a U.S. government donation, the embassy confirmed yesterday. A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy said an inspection ...
Police Say RCAF Trying to Bury Fatal Crash With Cash
Military officials are attempting to squelch a potential lawsuit from relatives of three people killed Friday when Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) soldiers smuggling wood through Siem Reap province drove a military truck, donated by the U.S. government, into the family’s motorbike, police officials said. ...
Army Truck Carrying Illegal Timber Kills Family
A family of three, including an 18-year old girl, died when the driver of a military truck carrying illegally cut wood slammed into their motorbike in Siem Reap province, officials said yesterday. The family died at the scene while the occupants of the military truck, seen ...