Cambodian man guilty in failed coup attempt

Cambodian policemen stand in front of Cambodian Freedom Fighters' (CFF) weapons and flags in Phnom Penh, in 2001

Callahan said his client (Chhun Yasith) had founded the CFF after deciding that "speeches and diplomacy were not going to be enough" to unseat Hun Sen.

LOS ANGELES (AFP) — A Cambodian man was found guilty by a US jury on Wednesday of fomenting a failed coup attempt in his native country in November 2000 and now faces a possible life sentence.

Chhun Yasith, 52, a California accountant who arrived in America in the 1980s after the collapse of the Khmer Rouge's "Killing Fields" regime, was accused of drawing up plans for the overthrow of Prime Minister Hun Sen in Phnom Penh from his modest office in Long Beach, southwest of Los Angeles.

"The planning and fundraising happened right here in the United States," prosecutor Lamar Baker told jurors earlier this month at the US District Court of Los Angeles. "It was like the labels say, 'Made in the USA.'"

After a two-week trial, he was found guilty of conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction outside the United States and engaging in a military expedition against a nation with which the United States is at peace.

He was also found guilty of conspiracy to kill in a foreign country and conspiracy to damage or destroy property in a foreign country.

Chhun Yasith is scheduled to be sentenced on September 8.

Prosecutors said Chhun Yasith founded a group known as the Cambodian Freedom Fighters (CFF) in 1998 and was elected president after traveling to Thailand to enlist the support former Cambodian military personnel.

The CFF planned a twin-pronged strategy to bring about revolution, prosecutors said. The group was ordered to carry out "popcorn" attacks on soft targets such as karaoke bars, nightclubs and coffee houses before launching an all-out assault to overthrow the government.

After one of the so-called "popcorn" attacks -- the July 2000 bombing of a nightclub in Cambodia that left two people dead and many injured -- Chhun Yasith sent a fax to members "bragging about hospitals filling up with victims," Baker said.

Chhun Yasith selected a total of 291 targets for their ill-fated coup, codenamed "Operation Volcano."

Despite being warned by senior CFF advisors that the rebel forces were not big enough to challenge the Cambodian army and police, Chhun Yasith -- based in Thailand -- pressed ahead with the coup attempt, which took place on November 24, 2000.

Dozens of armed men stormed into Phnom Penh firing AK-47 rifles and rockets at government buildings, leaving at least four people dead, before the rebellion was quelled.

More than 100 people were jailed for the attack, which left Hun Sen unscathed.

Chhun Yasith was tried in absentia in Phnom Penh in June 2001 and convicted of conspiracy, terrorism and membership of an illegal armed group.

During the US trial, Chhun Yasith's attorney, Richard Callahan, argued that his client's "only goal was to bring democracy to his homeland."

"It was misguided and naive in its execution but it was not misguided and naive in its intent," Callahan said, saying his client had launched a "noble effort to save Cambodia" from the "tyrannical regime of Hun Sen."

Callahan said his client had founded the CFF after deciding that "speeches and diplomacy were not going to be enough" to unseat Hun Sen.

In a December 2000 interview with the Cambodia's English-language Cambodia Daily newspaper, Chhun Yasith said the attack was a failed coup bid and vowed to strike again to topple the government.

"We were prepared to transform Cambodia into a country like the US," Chuun Yasith told the newspaper. "We had a constitution that would've turned Cambodia into a republic," he added.

Chhun Yasith and his wife, Sras Pech, 42, face another trial on July on charges of running a fraudulent tax-preparation business in Long Beach.

'Freedom Fighter' Faces US Court

By Mark Pierce, VOA Khmer
Original report from Long Beach, Calif.
07 April 2008

The trial of Cambodian-American Chhun Yasith on charges related to an alleged attack on government forces finally began this week in Los Angeles, California.

Chhun Yasith was arraigned in June 2005 on charges stemming from clashes between the Cambodian Freedom Fighters and government forces in November 2000.

Chhun Yasith is also accused, along with wife Sras Pech, of filing falsified tax claims for recently arrived Cambodian immigrants. Both are in federal custody in Los Angeles.

US federal prosecutors charge that Chhun Yasith helped lead an armed attack against a country "that is at peace with the United States."

A jury was selected last Wednesday, and by Thursday opening arguments were presented by both the prosecuting and defense attorneys.

"This accountant from the city of Long Beach decided he was going to take over a country," the New York Sun quoted prosecutor Lamar Baker saying. "And he was willing to take lives in order to do so."

Richard Callahan Jr., Chhun Yasith's attorney, said the Cambodian Freedom Fighters had tried to overthrow the "tyrannical regime" of Prime Minister Hun Sen, the Sun reported.

"They attempted what they believed was a gallant effort to save Cambodia from the regime of Prime Minister Hun Sen," Callahan was quoted as saying. "These men put their lives on the line for the cause....The effort was misguided and naïve in its execution to be sure, but it was not misguided in its intent."

Both sides will review Chhun Yasith’s role in forming the CFF, which allegedly included fundraising activities in the Long Beach area in the 1990s and fomenting a rebellion from the Thai-Cambodian border area.

The trial is expected to last twelve days, according to the US Department of Justice.

The attack left four of the CFF members dead and several policemen wounded.

The Cambodian government has sent 14 police officers to testify at the trial, some of them as eye-witnesses, Cambodian authorities said.

The Cambodian government requested that the US arrest Chhun Yasith for several years before the US took him into custody in 2005.