Police general accused of beating bank employee in Cambodia [-A CPP officer and a thug?]

Jan 30, 2012
DPA

Phnom Penh - An irate police general allegedly beat a bank employee with a mobile phone in Cambodia after the worker refused to cash a cheque, national media reported Monday.

Representatives from Canadia Bank in the western city of Poipet filed a complaint against Major General Sok Lihuoth, accusing him of intentional violence, the Cambodia Daily newspaper reported.

The officer allegedly became enraged after the bank employee had declined his wife's request to cash a cheque worth more than 14,000 dollars on Thursday. The cheque had been made out to him.

Keang Keatly said the officer hit him on the head with a phone and yelled: 'Do you know who I am?'

A bank official said there was video of the incident. A provincial military police commander said the major general had fled.

Private armies a threat

TUESDAY, 17 AUGUST 2010
Ou Virak
Letter to The Phnom Penh Post

Dear Editor,

I write to outline my serious concerns arising from an article published recently in The Phnom Penh Post on the involvement of police and military police in a land conflict in Stung Trang district, Kampong Cham (‘Police employ guns and batons to drive villagers from disputed land’, August 10).

Stung Trang district deputy police chief Chear Thearirth confirmed that a private company involved in the land conflict with local villagers “hired” police and military police to intervene to clear the impugned land, leading to clashes with villagers and injuries to two elderly women and a young man.

This incident reflects a dangerous trend in Cambodia, whereby police and armed forces are increasingly working in the interests and under the apparent direction of private individuals and businesses.

On February 22, the Post published a leaked Royal Government of Cambodia document, signed by Prime Minister Hun Sen, which lists individual units of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces together with private individuals or companies that are reported to be providing donations to those units. Since the publication of that document, a land dispute in Omlaing commune, Kampong Speu, between villagers and a company owned by the ruling Cambodian People’s Party Senator Ly Yong Phat, has highlighted the likely results of these donations. Battalion 313, which according to the leaked document is funded by Ly Yong Phat, violently intervened on behalf of his company to clear the impugned land.

The growing trend of private control over the police and armed forces poses a very serious threat to stability in Cambodia. The creation of bands of armed men answerable to powerful individuals or companies raises the spectre of violent clashes between different groups operating in defence or furtherance of conflicting private interests.

The Cambodian Center for Human Rights urges the RGC to intervene immediately and publicly to stop the dangerous co-opting of the police and armed forces by private individuals and businesses, and to curb the serious threat to stability that is posed by such practices.

Ou Virak, President
Cambodian Center for Human Rights

Violent general to be jailed and ordered to pay compensation

General Keo Monysoka, a child and teachers beater, was sentenced to one year in jail but saw his sentence reduced to 10-day of jail instead! It pays to be a general after all!

17 March 2010
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Socheata

Preah Sihanouk tribunal held a closed door hearing in the afternoon of 16 March 2010 in the lawsuit against one-star General Keo Monysoka aka Keo Soka as planned, even though the general has some health problem and is currently being hospitalized. The hearing started at 2:30PM ended at 5PM and the court charged the accused on inflicting injuries and sentenced him to one year of jail time, but the sentence was reduced to 10 day instead, beyond these 10 days, he will remain out of jail and all his duty will be pulled as he will become an ordinary citizen. He was also ordered to pay 4 million riels ($1,000) each to two teachers as damage compensation and 10 million riels ($2,500) to the mother of the child he beat. Keo Monysoka is the deputy Navy commander in Ream, he used violence to beat up a young boy and two other teachers because of a dispute between the child he beat and the general’s child. People revealed that the violent general is currently being hospitalized due to high blood pressure that is why he could not attend the hearing.

From a communist regime that beat up monks, it's not surprising that its army wants to demolish Buddhist pagoda

Hun Sen's regime police beating Khmer Krom monk (Photo: Licadho)

Army Pushing Pagoda to Move: Monk

By Heng Reaksmey, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
18 April 2008

The armed forces is threatening to demolish a pagoda in Kampot province, if the leaders don’t move it first, a chief monk said Friday.

Division 11 soldiers have said the pagoda, which is home to seven monks and nine nuns, was built illegally in 2007, said Venerable In Sok, head monk at the pagoda.

Soldiers are not allowing villagers to hold ceremonies or pray at the pagoda and have threatened to destroy it if it is not moved, he said.

The pagoda is near a military headquarters and must be moved, said Phy Sokhen, secretary of the intervention forces of Division 11.

Not Norn, the district chief of the local Ministry of Religion office, said the pagoda had a legal permit to from the ministry to be built on the site.

The military was wrong in this matter, he said.

Kampot Governor Thach Khorn said he would conduct an investigation.