Crime and law enforcement

Police in the capital yesterday arrested the alleged leader of a “secessionist plot”, Beehive Radio station director Mam Sonando, who had already been abroad for two months when hundreds of security personnel stormed a Kratie province village in May. Khieu Sopheak, a spokesman for the Ministry ...

The Koh Kong Provincial Court yesterday postponed the first hearing in a long-running land dispute between dozens of villagers from Chikor Leu commune and sugar companies believed to be partly owned by ruling-party senator Ly Yong Phat. ...

A second police official in Ratanakkiri province has been suspended on suspicion that he demanded money from villagers so that their names could be included on a list of people eligible for land titles as part of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s new titling program, police ...

A Friday press conference meant to be an act of defiance and a call for justice from the so-called Kratie “secessionists” was conspicuously short on both, as two accused secessionists failed to appear as promised to demand that the government present credible evidence against them. Instead, ...

As a delegation of US business owners prepares to travel to Cambodia with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, analysts say they will be tough to court, given Cambodia’s lack of law enforcement. “Investors don’t bring guns, they don’t bring bodyguards—they bring money to invest,” said ...

Two more of the five accused secessionists from Kratie province’s Pro Ma village turned themselves in on Friday, Ministry of Interior officials said, just days after Hun Sen declared that he would drop charges against them if they testified against the plot’s masterminds. [Bun] Ratha ...

An appeals court Wednesday ordered the release of 13 women who were jailed for protesting being evicted from their homes without adequate compensation, in a case that had critics had highlighted as an example of injustice. The women cheered in the courtroom, their supporters applauded and ...

Thirteen Boeung Kak lake women who were sentenced to two and a half years in jail on Thursday following a lawyer-free trial that lasted just three hours will appeal their convictions, their distraught supporters said yesterday. As the reality of the trial, which rights groups have ...

Twenty convicts in Preah Sihanouk Provincial Prison were employed by military and local authorities to tear apart a nearby village on land slated for a second prison compound, villagers and rights groups alleged yesterday. However, prison authorities denied that any incarcerated people were involved in the ...

Forestry Administration officials have confiscated 15 cubic meters of luxury-grade wood from a truck belonging to hotel and casino magnate Try Pheap in Kompong Thom province. Soth Mary, a division director for the Forestry Administration in the province, said yesterday that his staff stopped a truck ...

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has urged the Cambodian government to release 13 Boeung Kak lake women imprisoned after a three-hour trial last month, telling Foreign Minister Hor Namhong at a meeting in Washington that such a move would support freedom of expression. “The secretary ...

The U.S. has called on the Cambodian government to give fair legal treatment to the 13 women recently jailed for demonstrating against their evictions from the Boeng Kak area, according to a U.S. State Department spokeswoman. Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong met with U.S. Secretary of ...

A Cambodian court is asked to re-examine the jailing of Boeung Kak land activists. Cambodian authorities have asked a court to review the jailing of 13 women involved in a land dispute as protests over their sentences escalated with over 100 demonstrators threatening Thursday to march ...

The case of the 13 imprisoned Boeung Kak women is in the hands of the Appeal Court now, the women’s defence lawyer said yesterday. Lawyer Harm Sunrith said that Phnom Penh Municipal Court had sent the case to the Appeal Court on Tuesday, adding that he ...

The Ministry of Justice will not press the Phnom Penh Municipal Court to review the case of 13 Boeng Kak residents sentenced to jail last month for demonstrating against a CPP senator’s real estate project, despite asking the court to consider releasing the women. Now that ...

The Ministry of Justice has called on the Phnom Penh Municipal Court to re-examine whether the decision to sentence 13 Boeung Kak women to two and a half years in jail was just, according to a letter obtained by the Post yesterday. The letter was ...

The Justice Ministry has written to the Phnom Penh Municipal Court requesting that it review the case of 13 Boeng Kak women recently jailed for demonstrations against a CPP senator’s real estate project, a ministry official said yesterday. Bunyai Narin, deputy Cabinet chief for the Justice ...

The 13 Boeung Kak lake women imprisoned after a three-hour trial on May 24 were tried unjustly on charges that had no basis, according to a Cambodian Center for Human Rights report released yesterday. Ou Virak said the women’s sentencing, which came two days after ...

The Kratie Provincial Court has released on bail five of the eight people charged after a military-style operation by security forces on a small village alleged to be the home of a secessionist movement, a court official said yesterday. On May 16, a 14-year-old girl was ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday urged tour bus operators to respect the traffic law following a recent spate of bus crashes that have killed Cambodians as well as foreign tourists. “Please, respect the land traffic law,” Mr. Hun Sen said during a speech at the inauguration ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday questioned four Russei Keo district villagers from two families who have been embroiled in a land dispute for two years with a local businessman, lawyers said yesterday. The families are accused of physically attacking landowner Lao Tong Ngy, a man ...

Freedom House and several other international human rights groups condemned the conviction of 13 Phnom Penh women last week who are locked in a land dispute with CPP Senator Lao Meng Khin and called for their release in a joint statement issued Tuesday. The women were arrested ...

About 100 residents from Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak community rallied in front of the National Assembly yesterday to demand the release of 13 women sentenced to jail last week and two others now in pretrial detention for opposing evictions resulting from a real estate project ...

A Phnom Penh Municipal Court official yesterday refused to disclose the nature of “incitement” charges issued in February against well-known monk Loun Sovath, while the Ministry of Justice claimed it was unaware of the case against the social campaigner. According to documents dated Feb. 14 and ...