Another sixteen years in jail for former Phnom Penh commissioner

Photo: Dap-news

12-03-2009
By Duong Sokha
Ka-set

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court issued on Thursday March 12th its verdict regarding the case of complicity in the attempt of murder, with premeditation, of the country’s top military police chief Sao Sokha in December 2003. The result is 16 years of imprisonment for former Phnom Penh municipal police commissioner Heng Pov and his former minor crime police deputy chief Ly Rasy. Heng Pov, who has already been convicted for other crimes, now totals a sentence of more than 74 years in jail.

Each of the four other former policemen and military police – one of whom escaped from the Prey Sar prison – will have to serve, for their part, a 15-year prison sentence, as part of the same case. Heng Pov was not present on March 12th at the court hearing, unlike the four other accused, handcuffed, who decided to appeal the decision after the verdict was pronounced by Judge Iv Kimsry.

Heng Pov chose to keep silent at his trial on March 10th to protest against the decision of the court to freeze his bank accounts, which prevents him from paying the fees for Kao Soupha, the lawyer he chose for himself. But Kao Soupha was not able to defend him and was replaced by an assigned lawyer. Reached after the hearing, Kao Soupha deemed the verdict “ridiculous” since it was rendered on the sole basis of an anonymous letter. “If an anonymous letter is enough to convict him, then just imagine, many people could be sentenced too with simple anonymous denunciations!”

Long Dara, the lawyer for Ly Rasy and another of the accused policemen, also denounced, on the phone, the decision of the judge who, according to him, has not studied Law. “The criminal act did not take place, therefore there has not been any harm done. Moreover, there is no crime element and no evidence in that case. They cannot be sentenced to 15 or 16 years in prison”, he claimed.

For his part, top commander of the royal military police Sao Sokha declared on the phone that he thanked the tribunal for having dealt out justice for himself and other people who also faced homicide attempts in the same case. “Those who committed actions that are against the law of the Kingdom of Cambodia must be sentenced”, Soa Sokha simply commented. Sao Sokha is also deputy commander in chief of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF).

Heng Pov, who also used to be under-secretary of state at the Ministry of Interior and former advisor to Cambodian prime Minister Hun Sen, is still awaiting prosecution in two other cases: the kidnapping of a couple in 2004 and a homicide attempt against Thong Uy Pang, editor for local newspaper Koh Santepheap in 1998.