FBI Team En Route To Aid Murder Case

By Heng Reaksmey, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
04 September 2008

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A team of FBI investigators will arrive in Cambodia later this month to help police investigate the murder of opposition journalist Khim Sambor.

The team will include at least two sketch artists, said Phnom Penh Police Chief Brig. Gen. Touch Naroth.

Cambodian police and the FBI will meet one or two times a week to exchange information on the investigation, he said. Police met with an FBI official from the US Embassy last week, he said.

Khim Sambor was shot dead in Phnom Penh on July 11, along with his 21-year-old son, Khat Sarin Pheatha, two weeks ahead of national elections, and his killers are still at large.

Touch Naroth said Thursday the motive was not considered political, but police believe the killers were targeting Khim Sambor's son.

Khim Sambor's wife and two daughters were quietly granted asylum and fled to a Western country in late August, Chan Saveth, an investigator for the rights group Adhoc, said Thursday.

Family members of assassinated journalist left Cambodia

04 September 2008
By Leang Delux
Cambodge Soir Hebdo
Translated from French by Luc Sâr
Click here to read the original article in French

The departure was motivated by security reason, meanwhile an FBI agent will attempt to obtain a composite sketch of the killers of Khim Sambo and his son.

Accompanied by her two children, the wife of Khim Sambo, the opposition journalist who was killed alongside his son during the election campaign last July, left the country two weeks ago. The news was revealed by Chan Soveth, an investigator for Licadho. This departure was organized following the intervention made by three human rights organizations: Adhoc, Licadho and the UNHCR office in Cambodia.

Chan Soveth indicated also that other witnesses of the crime are now in hiding for security measure. According to Chan Soveth, the main reason which motivated this departure is because “the family has no confidence in the police because, up to now, the killers have not been arrested yet.” The current destination of the family is held in secret.

Touch Naroth, the Phnom Penh police commissioner, said that this situation will not help the case. He recognized that this departure will “create an obstacle to the investigation, but this will not prevent the FBI and the Cambodian police to pursue the search.”

Touch Naroth dismissed the declarations made by human rights organizations reagrding the lack of confidence in the police. “These associations say nonsense, if the family has no confidence in the police, who can they have confidence on?” Touch Naroth asked.

Following its initial focus on Khim Sambo himself, the investigations are now focused on his son. “The FBI and us agree on this point,” Touch Naroth claimed. Why the focus on the son? Because according to a hospital report, one of the doctors who took care of him when he arrived at the emergency room, heard him whispering that he was killed because of a “grudge.”

In the upcoming days, two new FBI agents are expected to arrive in Phnom Penh – an investigator and a composite sketcher who will be in charge of obtaining a sketch of the killers based on descriptions provided by witnesses.