Court delayed the sentencing of opposition leader Sam Rainsy to 23 September 2010

Chuong Chou-ngy (L), Sam Rainsy's defense lawyer and Ky Tech (R), the government lawyer

Wednesday, September 08, 2010
By Pech Bandol
Free Press Magazine Online
Translated from Khmer by Soch
Click here to read the article in Khmer

After spending more than 4 hours in heated arguments between the government lawyer and opposition leader Sam Rainsy’ defense lawyer in the case of falsification of public documents and disinformation, at the end, the Phnom Penh municipal court decided to delay the announcement of the sentence to the morning of 23 September instead.

During this morning’s hearing, with the presence of Judge Ker Sakhorn, Sok Roeun, the deputy prosecutor, Ky Tech, the government lawyer, Chuong Chou-ngy, Sam Rainsy’s defense lawyer and 2 government witnesses: Its Setha and Sin Sotheany, two map engineers for the government border committee, the two government witnesses were conniving to blame Sam Rainsy, accusing him of setting up false maps and disinformation in this case with the intention of making the government lose face and creating confusion among the public.

Ky Tech said during the hearing that the map that Sam Rainsy launched over the SRP’s website on February was a map that Sam Rainsy falsified with the aim of accusing and making the government lose face, and of affecting the relationships between Cambodia and Vietnam. Ky Tech demanded that the court sentences Sam Rainsy according to Article 49 of the [antiquated] UNTAC-era criminal code for falsifying public document and according to Article 62 for disinformation.

According to Article 49 of the antiquated 1992 UNTAC-era criminal code, if found guilty, Sam Rainsy could face between 5 to 15-year of jail time. According to Article 62, if found guilty, Sam Rainsy could face between 5 months and 5 years of jail time.

As the same time, Ky Tech also demanded that Sam Rainsy pay a compensation of 100 million riels (~$25,000) for making [the government] lose face and for waste of time.

However, Chuong Chou-ngy, Sam Rainsy’s defense lawyer, rejected these accusations, saying that his client did not falsify any public documents. He explained that for a document to be declared public, it must fulfill 3 conditions: (1) it is a document recognized by public officials, (2) it is legally recognized, and (3) it a valid document. However, the document launched by his client over the Internet did not receive the recognition from public officials, nor from the law, and it is not valid, therefore, there is no reason to say that his client falsified a public document.

Based on the above argument, Chuong Chou-ngy asked the judge to drop the lawsuit against his client. Nevertheless, after the end of the hearing, at 12:35PM, the judge decided to delay the announcement of the sentence to 23 September 2010 instead.