Legal and judicial system

When Sam Samnang’s son decided to join the ranks of environmental NGO Mother Nature, she knew he was in for trouble. ...

A prosecutor at the trial of opposition activist Ouk Pich Samnang yesterday asked the Phnom Penh Municipal Court to drop charges of joining a criminal association and damaging public property but keep those of obstructing authorities and intentional violence. ...

German lawyer Michael Bohlander has been appointed as the new international co-investigating judge at the Khmer Rouge tribunal by King Norodom Sihamoni, the tribunal announced in a statement Monday. ...

A 40-year-old garment worker was sentenced to life in prison by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Monday for killing a 20-year-old woman by dousing her with acid after she learned her husband had been having an affair with the victim. ...

Police on Sunday released six Cambodian men who were arrested in Oddar Meanchey province the night before with a load of rosewood they had logged in Thailand and carried back across the border, an official said. ...

As police prepared to send more than 100 suspected drug dealers and users to court Monday, the notorious Phnom Penh slum where they were arrested in two separate raids last week remained a hive of illicit activity. ...

Police seized more than 2 tons of marijuana in Phnom Penh on Friday evening and later arrested four suspected drug dealers, police said Sunday. ...

Forestry Administration officials detained two military police officers and a third man on Tuesday for attempting to stop them from transporting a haul of illegally logged wood to their headquarters in Kratie City, officials said Sunday. ...

A district official in Banteay Meanchey province was charged with manslaughter Sunday after his neighbor died when he touched an electric fence surrounding the official’s property, police said. ...

More than 100 police officers descended on a notorious slum in Sen Sok district’s Toek Thla commune on Friday in a coordinated effort to flush out drug-related crime from the ghetto, ultimately arresting 88 people for using or selling crystal methamphetamine. ...

An increasing number of women who are victims of violence are looking for solutions outside the country’s dysfunctional court system, the president of rights group Licadho, Pung Chhiv Kek, said yesterday. ...

Pech Prum Mony, a one-star military general and former bodyguard for disgraced Phnom Penh Municipal Court director Ang Mealaktei, on Thursday denied accusations of abuse of power and interfering with judicial procedure while under questioning at the court, his lawyer said. ...

A defrocked monk arrested in Phnom Penh earlier this month for the alleged possession of weapons, fake documents and crystal methamphetamine told the municipal court Wednesday that he and a fellow defendant never possessed any of the contraband. ...

The government yesterday rebutted allegations that the arrest of Senator Hong Sok Hour was politically motivated, reiterating that the issue was a legal matter, not a political one. ...

A Koh Kong provincial judge on Wednesday questioned three activists who were arrested late Monday—not in the courtroom, but in the prison where they are being held. ...

Who killed 24-year-old Chhun Kim at an Internet shop run by her family? This was the question left hanging at the end of a hearing at the Court of First Instance yesterday, where 22-year-old portrait sketcher Dang Sopheak was on trial for her murder. ...

Military police in Stung Treng province on Monday arrested a Laotian man with a half-kilogram of crystal methamphetamine he had smuggled into the country, an official said Tuesday. ...

Two men were detained, fined and released Monday morning in Siem Reap province for attempting to transport 100,000 newly hatched snakehead fish from the Vietnamese border to sell to fish farmers, officials said Tuesday. ...

Seven Nigerian men who stand charged with drug trafficking denied any involvement in an alleged methamphetamine ring during the second day of their trial at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Tuesday, a month after an eighth man admitted to acting as a courier. ...

The seven opposition CNRP lawmakers charged last year with “leading an insurrection” could be arrested and imprisoned in the same way that opposition Senator Hong Sok Hour was arrested and imprisoned over the weekend, Justice Ministry spokesman Chin Malin said Tuesday. ...

Disgraced former Phnom Penh Municipal Court director Ang Mealaktei was sent to the Kandal Provincial Prison on Sunday after he was charged with embezzlement for allegedly confiscating an SUV from a drug dealer and giving it to his son, a prison official said Monday. ...

Cambodia’s former deputy consul-general to Ho Chi Minh City denied forging a document to help a private company smuggle luxury-grade wood into Vietnam during the first day of his trial at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Monday. ...

Some two-hundred vendors peacefully gathered in front of the residence of Prime Minister Hun Sen near Independence Monument, seeking the premier’s intervention to stop a planned construction of new Doeum Kor market. ...

Following orders from Prime Minister Hun Sen, opposition Senator Hong Sok Hour was arrested and charged with forgery and incitement over the weekend for posting an apparently fake treaty with Vietnam to Facebook. ...