News

A journalist murdered in Ratanakkiri last week took a call from his accused killer on the night of his disappearance, his family has claimed in a complaint to the rights group Adhoc. Ken Sovann, 63, the mother of slain journalist Hang Serei Oudom, whose body was found in his car in O’Chum district ...

Villagers have found more than 100 cubic metres of timber and three chainsaws in Prey Lang forest during a six-day patrol for illegal logging, community officials said yesterday. Scouring the forest on motorcycles and on foot, more than 300 villagers from four provinces found 100 cubic ...

A Ratanakkiri provincial court has charged a married couple with premeditated murder in the grisly killing of Vorakchun Khmer newspaper reporter Hang Serei Oudom, whose body was found axed to death in the back of a car last week. The suspects, An Bunheng and his wife, ...

A forestry officer and a reporter from a little-known newspaper were arrested Friday on allegations of attempted extortion and assaulting a man they caught illegally transporting luxury timber, but were released on Saturday, military police officials said yesterday. Seng Chandaron, the chief of Sandan commune Forestry ...

A local journalist and a forestry official were arrested by military police in Kratie province’s Sambo district on Friday night for allegedly discharging a weapon into the air and beating a man with a boat oar in an extortion bid gone awry. According to district military ...

The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court yesterday charged a military police captain and his wife with the murder of journalist Hang Serei Odom, officials said. Hang Serei Odom, who worked for the Virakchun Khmer Daily newspaper, was found dead in the trunk of his car on Tuesday. He ...

Police investigating the murder of a journalist whose battered body was discovered in Ratanakkiri province on Tuesday have unearthed key clues to who may have carried out the killing, an official said yesterday. Hang Serei Odom, 42-who had written exposes on the involvement of powerful people in forest ...

A local newspaper stringer who had written about illegal logging was found dead in the back of a car yesterday in Rattanakiri province’s O’Chum district. Hang Serei Oudom, 44, was a stringer for Vorakchun Khmer, or Khmer Hero, newspaper. Police said his body was covered in blood ...

A Cambodian journalist, who reported on forest crimes in Ratanakkiri province for a little-known newspaper, was found murdered in the trunk of his car yesterday, police said. Hang Serei Odom, 42, a journalist at the Khmer-language Virakchun Khmer Daily, had been missing since Sunday, when he ...

Members of Bunong ethnic minority forest group in Kratie province who accused local police of barring their community patrols in search of illegal logging were told by a Forestry Administration official yesterday that they had no authority to operate. Mr. [Peit] Kun Pedor [head of ...

Royal Cambodian Armed Forces soldiers arrested 18 Cambodian farmers trying to cross the border in Oddar Meanchey province to illegally log in Thailand on Saturday. The farmers, between 20 and 40 years old, were travelling in a rented van equipped with axes, saws and other tools, ...

Villagers who claim their patrols last week uncovered criminal activity in Prey Lang forest presented the government yesterday with a list of 15 people they say are illegally logging in the area. Reoun Sopheap, a representative of about 100 villagers from Kampong Thom province’s Sandan district, ...

Forestry Administration officers said yesterday they were still struggling to remove a large cache of illegally harvested wood they seized along the Stung Chinit River in Kampong Thom province a week ago. Heng Kamich, head of the Forestry Administration in Santuk district, said the officers seized ...

Authorities in Kampong Thom province have made good on their promise to examine evidence of illegal logging unearthed by community investigators in the greater Prey Lang area, summoning seven representatives yesterday to present their findings. The Prey Lang Community Network representatives were summoned to Sandan district ...

After a brief détente, a fight over the Prey Trolach community forest in Battambang province that has its citizen guardians and the Forestry Administration pitted against the military is back on, those working to protect the area from illegal logging said yesterday. Since it was deemed ...

Members of the Prey Long People’s Network ended a three-day patrol of the forest yesterday and said they had discovered about 300 cubic meters of illegally logged timber and swathes of state-owned forest being encroached on by private companies. “Authorities are paying no attention to itthey ...

Community activists patrolling the Prey Lang forest for a second day yesterday claimed to have found more evidence of illegal logging – in the form of hundreds of cubic metres of timber and several hectares of cleared land. Prey Lang network representative Hoeun Sopheap said villagers ...

About 100 villagers in Kompong Thom province set out yesterday on a three-day patrol of Prey Long forest in search of illegal logging, their second since the April 26 shooting death of conservationist Chut Wutty. who was the organizer of the first patrols. Soem Sean, a ...

An expedition to expose illegal logging uncovered about 50 hectares of clear-felled forest yesterday that activists from the Prey Lang Community Network have filmed and photographed to lobby government officials, a group representative said. Chum Yin said more than 60 villagers had traveled to seven villages ...

Nearly 100 Prey Lang villagers in Kampong Thom province’s Sandan district will today embark on a three-day “forest watch” mission to monitor what community representatives say are increased illegal logging activities in the jungle. This is the fourth time the community has conducted monitoring in the ...

Two more people in Pursat province’s Veal Veng district have been arrested in conjunction with what local authorities are calling a secessionist plot, while provincial authorities threatened to demolish more homes if residents do not leave a disputed area, officials said yesterday. Deputy provincial court prosecutor ...

In February, Son Chhay wrote to the premier urging him to investigate illegal logging outside the legal clearing area slated for the Stung Tatai dam reservoir in Koh Kong province and the environmental destruction that would be wrought by the Stung Cheay Areng dam.  In a ...

Cambodia’s government has ignored a suspension on new land concessions to private companies, announcements in an official publication showed, despite ordering a freeze after growing discontent over forced evictions and illegal logging. Prime Minister Hun Sen signed off on 12 sub-decrees on June 7 and 12 ...

Another witness to the fatal shootings of environmental activist Chut Wutty and military police officer In Rattana was questioned at Koh Kong Provincial Court yesterday. Bou Orn is the third employee of logging company Timbergreen – a firm Chut Wutty was investigating for alleged illegal logging ...