Crime and law enforcement

Rights group Licadho says it is canceling its annual prison visits on international Human Rights Day, which this year falls on Thursday, for the first time in two decades in protest over what it says are new government restrictions. ...

Convicted tycoon Thong Sarath yesterday began an appeal of his June conviction for possessing and using illegal weapons.He was arrested in April after allegedly masterminding the assassination of another construction magnate, Ung Meng Cheu, in November last year. ...

Fast approaching six months since its creation, a special commission to investigate the cold-case killings of three union figures, including Free Trade Union president Chea Vichea, has nothing to report. ...

Almost 50 garment workers are recovering from their injuries in the hospital or at home after the flatbed truck that was transporting them home from work in Kompong Chhnang province on Monday evening plunged into a canal, police said on Tuesday. ...

More than 100 prisoners in Cambodia have received royal pardons and hundreds more have seen their sentences reduced under King Norodom Sihamoni’s traditional Water Festival clemency, a local English newspaper reported Wednesday. ...

Security will be tightened in Cambodia during the visit of Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev from Nov. 22 to 24, the National Police’s website reported on Saturday. ...

Cambodian opposition leader Sam Rainsy, for whom an arrest warrant was issued last week, will not be returning to Phnom Penh until a deal is struck to secure his freedom. ...

An international rights group Saturday called the warrant for the arrest of Cambodia’s opposition leader in a years-old defamation case “politically motivated”, saying it should be dropped immediately. ...

Fifty-five garment workers from three factories were injured in a traffic accident on Thursday eve­ning when a truck carrying them home from work ran off a highway in Kompong Chhnang prov­ince, officials said. ...

A Cambodian court on Friday ordered the arrest of an opposition leader, Sam Rainsy, in connection with a seven-year-old defamation case, and his party accused Prime Minister Hun Sen of being behind the move to gain the upper hand in their political fight. ...

Phnom Penh’s municipal governor yesterday called on citizens to start obeying traffic laws and using the city’s fledgling public-transportation system as he addressed widespread discontent with traffic issues. ...

Two opposition lawmakers who were attacked outside the National Assembly last month have filed a complaint of attempted murder against their assailants. ...

The almost 400 inmates held in Kampot Provincial Prison were transferred yesterday to a new facility, which officials say is better fit for purpose but a local rights group claims lacks any clean water. ...

 A total of 254 Chinese citizens arrested in Cambodia and Indonesia for running telephone and Internet scams targeting Chinese victims were repatriated Tuesday to face charges in China, the Public Security Ministry said. ...

Authorities in a northern Cambodian province on Monday rounded up six suspects for questioning in the killing of two officials and wounding of another who were on patrol in a preserved forest area, in the latest apparent confrontation between illegal loggers and officials, provincial police ...

A former inmate at Kampong Speu and Trapaing Phlong prisons claimed yesterday he witnessed rampant drug dealing at both facilities and plans to file a complaint with the support of NWRPO, a local NGO. ...

The Ministry of Interior is reviewing a list of more than 700 inmates eligible for pardons or reduced sentences during the upcoming Water Festival. ...

Three men have turned themselves into Cambodian police, claiming they were involved in the beatings of two opposition lawmakers last week.The Ministry of Interior announced late Tuesday Chay Sarith, Mao Hoeurn, and Suth Vanny had turned themselves in earlier in the day. But little more ...

Rights group launches justice campaign for murdered journalists on second UN-backed International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists. ...

Drivers on Cambodia’s chaotic streets are often quick to criticize the traffic police, who seem unable to bring things under control. However, the drivers themselves forget that poor driving and the ignoring of traffic laws lead to so many snarls. ...

Cambodia’s opposition party has called on the government to expedite a “dragging” investigation into a violent attack on two of its lawmakers and urged the United Nations to join the probe after the international body expressed concern over the assault. ...

A Trapaing Thlong prison officer in Kampong Cham was last week accused of demanding $150 to release a prisoner who had fully served his 10-year term, a charge the prison’s director rejected yesterday. ...

The mob that beat up two Cambodian opposition lawmakers outside the National Assembly building in Phnom Penh early this week included about 200 young men from Prime Minister Hun Sen’s corps of bodyguards who were driven in trucks to the protest and later boasted about ...

More than a year after a Cambodian man accused of sorcery was stoned and beaten to death by a mob in his home village, his widow still struggles to understand the reasons for his murder and works to finish building a house he had dreamed ...