Law and judiciary

A Montagnard asylum seeker was found dead on Wednesday morning in a Phnom Penh residence provided by the U.N.’s refugee agency, having committed suicide in his room, according to police. ...

Environmental activists yesterday renewed their calls for Angkor Beer maker Cambrew to clarify its director’s relationship with the controversial Don Sahong dam currently under construction in southern Laos.   ...

Police in Koh Kong province reported yesterday that 49 Cambodians were caught trying to cross the Thai border during a forest patrol on Monday in Smach Meanchey district.   ...

Justice Minister Ang Vong Vathana quipped over the weekend that anyone who can find his offshore financial holdings—revealed earlier this month as part of the “Panama Papers” leak—can keep the money, according to Information Minister Khieu Kanharith. ...

Phnom Penh has welcomed a decision by China to continue releasing water into the Mekong from the Jinhong Dam – even though it is likely to do little to alleviate drought conditions.    ...

Authorities in Australia have expanded the scope of their investigation into bribery allegations involving the relatives of Cambodian government officials and the former Cambodian operations of Australian miner OZ Minerals, the firm has announced.   ...

Police in Long Beach, California, said on Saturday that they had opened an investigation into the alleged assault of an American man by a bodyguard of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s son Hun Manet.   ...

National Police on Sunday said Khmer New Year traffic figures were evidence that the new traffic law has been a success, with 98 traffic accidents reported over the four-day holiday this year, a drop from 123 in 2015, when it was a three-day holiday.   ...

Although 254 people were either killed or injured in traffic accidents across the Kingdom during this year’s Khmer New Year, and the fatality rate rose, the rate of injury over the four-day celebration decreased when compared with the same period last year, according to a ...

Alex Gonzalez-Davidson, the outspoken director of the environmental group Mother Nature, has written to the U.N.’s special rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders to request that he pressure the government to release three Mother Nature activists imprisoned on charges stemming from an anti-sand ...

The U.S. State Department’s annual Human Rights Report, released on Wednesday, highlights poor treatment of Cambodia’s political opposition in 2015, and raises concerns about the judiciary’s “broad interpretation” of the crime of incitement.   ...

Outdoor tables and chairs belonging to bars and restaurants on Sihanoukville’s Serendipity Beach were removed by local authorities on Tuesday as part of a campaign to beautify the city’s beaches by ridding them of illegal commercial activity, an official said on Wednesday. ...

A journalist in Pailin province yesterday filed a lawsuit against a local police officer for allegedly threatening to kill him if he published a story about a drunken shooting spree the officer went on last week. ...

Prominent opposition lawmaker Um Sam An was arrested late Sunday in Siem Reap province for comments he made about the border with Vietnam, a government spokesman said Monday.   ...

The Stung Treng Provincial Court on Monday charged a goldsmith, three security guards and the manager of a market in Stung Treng City for negligence that contributed to the outbreak of a fire that gutted the market on Thursday, causing an estimated $1 million in ...

Less than a week after taking over the Transport Ministry, Sun Chanthol has established a committee to move more services online, including the process for applying for driver’s licenses, officials said on Monday.   ...

Imprisoned CNRP official Meach Sovannara has filed a lawsuit in a U.S. federal court against Prime Minister Hun Sen’s eldest son, Hun Manet, and the Cambodian government, accusing them of “terrorism” and “torture through arbitrary, extra-legal, and long-term detention.” ...

Demolishing the constitutional protection forbidding the arrest of lawmakers without National Assembly consent, police apprehended opposition lawmaker Um Sam An early Monday morning in Siem Reap City over his advocacy against Vietnamese border intrusions. ...

Authorities in Sihanoukville followed through with their long-threatened eviction of vendors from the end of the popular O’Chheuteal beach on Saturday afternoon, demolishing nearly 100 structures along the 2 km strip known locally as Ariston.   ...

The Ministry of Justice has announced that Royal pardons and reductions of prison sentences have been pushed back to Visak Bochea Day in May, as a result of prisons not offering enough information about potential candidates. ...

A two-star general in the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) will be questioned by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court today for allegedly making defamatory remarks about a superior officer’s wife relating to land seizures in Siem Reap province, according to court officials. ...

The Anti-Corruption Unit has not yet opened an investigation into Justice Minister Ang Vong Vathana’s secretive offshore holdings, but the unit’s chairman said on Thursday that a future probe could not be ruled out. ...

Suth Dina, who rose through the ranks of the Foreign Ministry to become Cambodia’s top diplomat in South Korea in 2014, continued his fall from grace on Thursday as he was imprisoned on charges of corruption and abuse of power, according to his lawyer and ...

Environmental activist Alex Gonzalez-Davidson, who was deported in February last year, has been granted a one-month tourist visa through the Foreign Ministry’s online “e-visa” service, but an immigration official said yesterday that it was unlikely he would be allowed to use it. ...