Crime and law enforcement

Family members of two men slain by military police in violent suppression of a garment worker protest in January were questioned Wednesday at the Ministry of Interior, although the investigation into the killings was officially declared closed on March 16. Soun Nara, the brother of Yean ...

More than 50 land rights activists from two Phnom Penh communities filed a complaint Wednesday with police over an incident in which an unidentified man allegedly fired a shot at a bus transporting them from an anti-eviction protest in Siem Reap to Phnom Penh. The city’s ...

An official with the government’s Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) said Tuesday that staff there were specifically instructed not to investigate allegations of large-scale bribery inside the Health Ministry so that the unit could settle the case out of court. On Sunday, ACU chief Om Yentieng told reporters ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Tuesday heard the case of three people who were charged with fraudulently obtaining passports for four Cambodian women in an attempt to send them to China for marriage. ...

Judges are now required to write a reasoned explanation when placing citizens in pre-trial detention, instead of simply checking a box as was previously practiced, Justice Minister Ang Vong Vathana said Tuesday. But the Ministry of Justice is also considering amending the criminal procedure code to ...

Some 625 prisoners could be released or see their jail terms reduced on the occasion of Khmer New Year, which falls on April 14-16, according to the Ministry of Justice. ...

Moments after Prak Sovannary heard the Court of Appeal denied her husband’s request for bail, she sobbed over a speaker affixed to the top of a tuk-tuk, condemning the decision to about 150 supporters. “Release him! Release him!” said Sovannary, the wife of Independent Democracy of ...

A group of 54 local and international non-government groups said Sunday that the state may be behind the disappearance of a 16-year-old boy last seen bleeding from a bullet wound at a garment worker protest in January, and urged the government to investigate. Five garment workers ...

Thailand’s ambassador to Cambodia was formally summoned on Friday to the Foreign Affairs Ministry over the shooting death last week of a Cambodian man who was among nine allegedly caught by soldiers cutting down forest across the country’s northwestern border with Thailand. ...

Activists from the Boeung Kak, Borei Keila and Thmor Kol communities were on board a bus on Saturday night when a bullet was fired into the windscreen, their representatives said yesterday. Bo Chorvy, 39, from Boeung Kak, said more than 40 people were on the bus ...

More than 600 of the Kingdom’s inmates could be released or see their sentences reduced this Khmer New Year if the King responds favourably to a request made yesterday by the Ministry of Interior’s General Department of Prisons, officials said. Kuy Bunsorn, director general of the ...

A union leader among 21 workers and activists arrested in January demonstrations will appear in the Court of Appeal to argue for bail next week, despite the same court denying his request last month. Vorn Pov, president of Independent Democracy of Informal Economy Association (IDEA), and ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court has finished an investigation into the shooting deaths of five protesting garment factory workers, and the wounding of more than 40 others, during a military police operation against stone-throwing strikers on January 3, Judge Phou Povsun said Sunday. “We had finished ...

A lawyer hired by the opposition CNRP said Tuesday that he would file a complaint next month with the International Criminal Court (ICC) over crimes against humanity allegedly perpetrated by state security forces. “We plan to file a Communication [complaint] before the International Criminal Court next ...

The Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) released a statement Tuesday in which Hor Sothoun, the eldest son of Foreign Affairs Minister Hor Namhong, defended himself against complaints of nepotism, abuse of power and mishandling of overtime bonuses in his position as permanent secretary-general in his father’s ministry. The ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Tuesday heard the case of a Banteay Meanchey court clerk accused of corruption and bribe-taking by the Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU). In February last year, the ACU arrested 28-year-old Suong Sok Heng, a clerk for provincial prosecutor Phan Vanroath, after they ...

Three people, including a former court clerk, stood trial yesterday, accused of unlawfully using court positions to conduct threats and bribery in Banteay Manchey province last year. Phnom Penh Municipal Court investigating judge Sous Sam Ath said former clerk at Banteay Meanchey provincial court Suong Sok ...

When he assumed leadership of Phnom Penh municipality in May 2013, Pa Socheatvong vowed to be a governor who would get things done. His predecessor, Kep Chuktema, oversaw the filling in of Boeng Kak lake and the mass eviction of its residents. A similar scenario unfolded ...

Members of the government, military and civil society met on Monday to form a working group to undertake security reform and reporting. The working group will have 26 members from a wide spectrum of government and nongovernment agencies to produce policy recommendations to Cambodia’s leaders. The formation ...

A representative for villagers living in Ratanakkiri’s O’Chum district who say that buyers from a local company failed to uphold a 2007 land deal has been charged and temporarily detained by local authorities for allegedly destroying private property. Haing Noeur, 50, was detained on Saturday after ...

Two union organizers have filed a complaint with the Phnom Penh Municipal Court claiming that the senior leaders of the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers Democratic Union (CCAWDU) have embezzled money that was meant to be paid to workers in compensation following a dispute with ...

A fisherman who survived a deadly collision after his boat smashed into a towboat off the south coast earlier this year filed a complaint Tuesday with the Anti-Corruption Unit, accusing a Koh Kong Prov­incial Court judge and his clerk of corruption after the judge allowed ...

Cambodian garment manufacturers and the association that governs them are failing to meet the standards set by the U.N.’s Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, as evidenced by lethal violence against workers during garment strikes in January, when five people were shot dead and ...

Two unions that called for a stay-at-home strike by garment factory employees Wednesday had little success in mobilizing workers after six other unions, under pressure from the government and factory owners, pulled out of the planned industrial action on Tuesday. Union leaders who pushed ahead with ...