Crime and law enforcement

Minister for Social Affairs Vong Soth yesterday vowed to cut the amount of children in orphanages by 30 per cent within two years through a joint campaign with NGOs. Dubbed “Keep Families Together”, the initiative, backed by USAID, UNICEF and Friends International, will urge parents to ...

Prison overcrowding continues to be a major issue plaguing Cambodia, Ministry of Interior officials said on Monday, as they revealed a 3 per cent increase in population at correctional facilities and prisons nationwide. In 2014, the number of prisoners rose from 14,702 in 2013 to 15,165 ...

The number of traffic accidents over Lunar New Year has decreased since last year due to more widespread knowledge of the upcoming traffic law, government officials and road safety experts say. ...

The former director of the Phnom Penh Municipal Court, who was ousted last week amid allegations of serious corruption, gave a luxury SUV to his son—a local police official—after it was confiscated from a suspected drug trafficker, the National Police said in a statement Sunday. ...

An immigration official said Sunday that his department would wait for orders before moving to deport environmental activist Alex Gonzalez-Davidson, whose visa the government refused to renew after it expired Friday. ...

Military police in Takeo province last night arrested a military general and close aide of ousted Phnom Penh Municipal Court director Ang Mealaktei, who was officially removed from his position Wednesday amid allegations of vast corruption. ...

Thailand’s army has asked Cambodia “not to jump [to] the conclusion” that its soldiers were to blame for the deaths of three Cambodian loggers who were shot dead earlier this month while searching for rosewood across the border, according to Thai media. ...

Plans to bring the raucous 10-day rave Kazantip to Cambodian shores were in tatters Wednesday as hundreds of Russian revelers showed up at the bridge leading to Koh Puos island to find the way blocked by a 2-meter-high metal barricade. ...

Authorities in Preah Sihanouk province have had yet another change of heart about the notoriously wild Kazantip music festival, pulling the event from Sihanoukville’s Koh Puos island for a second time, with one official citing a desire to dissuade “indecent tourism.” ...

Phnom Penh Municipal Court director Ang Mealaktei was removed from his position on Tuesday pending an investigation into rampant corruption at the court since he became its chief judge less than a year ago. The decision was made public hours after Prime Minister Hun Sen criticized ...

Five men were sentenced to 10 years in prison by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday for selling nearly 1 kilogram of crystal methamphetamine to undercover police officers in the capital’s Tuol Kork district last April. ...

In an unanticipated act of leniency yesterday, Prime Minister Hun Sen established a new committee to deliver pardons to mothers jailed with their children, according to several attendees of the conference where the announcement was made. ...

The appropriate scope of a controversial proposed ban on NGOs “insulting” political parties in election campaigns on Monday continued to divide the CPP and CNRP during talks to amend the nation’s election law, with the negotiating teams deciding to pass the issue on to their ...

About 300 tuk-tuk and moto-taxi drivers protested outside the Phnom Penh offices of the Angkor Thom newspaper on Sunday morning, demanding that it correct an article about a traffic accident involving one of the drivers, according to a union official and the newspaper’s publisher. ...

A group of university students from Phnom Penh opposed to a proposed hydropower dam in Koh Kong province entered the project’s construction site on Sunday for a 10-day study aiming to highlight the area’s alternative potential for ecotourism. ...

Having begun life in an overcrowded cell with nowhere to play, little to eat and surrounded by abuse, when Dara* left prison at nearly 4 years old, he had not yet spoken a single word. According to the report, which was released on Saturday, Dara’s ...

A draft law to protect state secrets has been in the works for more than two years and could be submitted to the Council of Minister for review in two months’ time, a senior police official said yesterday. ...

Bokor Mountain, Kampot province – Spurred on by social media rumors that Vietnamese tourists are flocking to this colonial-era retreat for elaborate, hidden ceremonies at the graves of their ancestors, CNRP lawmaker Yem Ponhearith on Thursday led about 50 officials here on a fact-finding trek. ...

The National Assembly’s banking and finance commission decided on Wednesday to summon Leng Peng Long, parliament’s chief administrative official, for questioning over claims of nepotism and alleged spending irregularities including $25,000 spent on a flagpole, the commission’s deputy chairman said. ...

Two of three men charged with using and trafficking methamphetamine inside the maximum-security Prey Sar prison denied the trafficking allegation during their trial at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Wednesday. ...

Local authorities investigating a house in Phnom Penh’s Tuol Kok district confiscated more than 260 containers of fertilizer and insecticide Wednesday morning after neighbors of a Chinese man complained of a noxious smell emanating from his house, which they feared might have been a dangerous ...

Deputy Phnom Penh governor Khuong Sreng on Tuesday reversed course on a City Hall announcement that it was investigating Wat Samakki Raingsey over alleged anti-government behavior and secessionist designs, comments that sparked fears among its monks that the independent-minded pagoda would be shut down. During a ...

An Australian teacher charged with sexually abusing six young boys claimed during the first day of his trial at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court Tuesday that an anti-pedophile NGO framed him. George Moussallie, 52, a former English teacher at the American Pacific School in Phnom Penh, ...

Garment workers continue to die in traffic accidents on their way to and from the factory, a new report highlighting the deadly commute in Cambodia’s largest industry shows. In the report, titled The Dangerous Journey of Garment Workers in 2014, the Ministry of Labour’s National Social ...