Officials cheated me: farmer

4 September 2012
The Phnom Penh Post
Agricultural production / Agriculture and fishing / Biofuel crops / Land / Land tenure and land titling
Cassava / cassava plantations / criminal activi / Disputed Land / farming / Fraud / land / Ministry of Interior

A cassava grower in Siem Reap’s Srei Snom district has accused a district police chief and a deputy commune chief of cheating him out of his land after they doctored the grower’s testimony in a court case. Em Socheat, a lawyer for land owner Yem Savuth, filed a complaint last week against district police chief Meas Pidor and deputy Sleng Spean commune chief, Chheng Leum, accusing them of helping to defraud his client out of $10,200 in a separate debt dispute with a neighbouring villager, Chan Sophal, a police officer at the Ministry of Interior. According to the lawyer, his client gave a thumbprinted testimony denying he owed the money to Sophal, but that wasn’t the testimony the district police chief forwarded to the court, which decided in favour of Sophal. Yem was ordered to repay the $10,200 debt – forcing him to freeze farming on his 92 hectare cassava farm.

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012090458481/National-news/officials-cheated-me-farmer.html