Pov Sam Ath case: a young man jailed for killing his stepfather

Wednesday, May 03, 2007
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Socheata

A young man who killed his stepfather, the editor of the Samleng Khmer Krom newspaper, and then stuffed his body in a suitcase thrown away at the Pech Nil mountain pass, in Kompong Speu province, has been ordered jailed by the Phnom Penh municipal court which accused him of premeditated murder. The mother of the young man and wife of the victim was released by the police because she is not involved in the murder. 25-year-old Chea Chandara was sent by the penal police of the Ministry of Interior to the Phnom Penh municipal court in the afternoon of 02 May. After questioning, Judge Hing Bun Chea, the deputy prosecutor decided to accuse the young man of premeditated murder, and his file was sent to the investigation judge to handle. According to the law, premeditated killing carries a sentence of 15 to 20 years in jail to life imprisonment sentence.

Victim's Wife, Three Others Arrested for Editor's Murder Case, Police Say

Mony, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
01/05/2007

Four suspects—including the victim's wife—have been arrested for the murder of a newspaper editor sympathetic to the cause of the Khmer Kampuchea Krom ethnic group, police said Tuesday.

The murder of Pov Sam Ath was likely not political, Mok Chito, chief of the Ministry of Interior's Criminal Department, said.

Pov Sam Ath's wife, her son and two other men were being held, Mok Chito said.

The body of Pov Sam Ath, 29, was found April 25 stuffed in a trunk in the countryside, after the victim was beaten and asphyxiated.

Rights groups for the Khmer Kampuchea Krom had called for an investigation into possible political motives.

Khmer Krom Group Appeals for Government for Security After Murder

Heng Reaksmey, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
27/04/2007

The Khmer Kampuchea Krom Human Rights Organization appealed to the government Friday to strengthen security and search for the murderers of at least two people killed recently who supported the ethnic minority group.

Police Thursday said they found a newspaper editor who advocated for the ethnic group murdered and stuffed in a trunk. Last month, a Khmer Kampuchea Krom monk was found dead at a pagoda following demonstrations in front of the Vietnamese Embassy in what rights groups said appeared to be murder.

The rights organization said Friday the deaths seemed to be the work of professional killers with specific targets.

An investigator for the rights group Adhoc said Friday the motives in the murder of newspaper editor Pov Sam Ath, who went missing April 22, were unclear.

He was beaten and asphyxiated and left in Kampong Speu province, but authorities said Friday they did not yet know where he was killed, or why.

Journalist murdered, body found in suitcase

27 April 2007
DPA

PHNOM PENH - The strangled and beaten body of a man identified as a Cambodian journalist was found dumped in a suitcase outside the capital, police said Friday.

The body was found in a deep gorge in Phnom Srouch district, around 40 kilometres from the capital, Wednesday and was later identified as journalist Pov Samarth, 28, by family members, said Keo Pisey, Kampong Speu provincial police chief.

Samarth, the publisher of the obscure Voice of Khmer Krom newspaper, had been reported missing several days earlier and the body had been in the suitcase for two to three days, Pisey said.

‘We can’t say if this was a revenge killing or not at this stage, nor if it was related to his work. He wasn’t killed at this site, but this place has become a popular spot to dump bodies,’ Pisey said. ‘The killer probably disposed of the body here to eliminate clues.’

Officials said Samarth himself was not a member of the Khmer Krom - a group numbering millions of ethnic Cambodians whose land was ceded to Vietnam after the fall of French colonial Indochina.

The topic of the Khmer or Kampuchea Krom is politically sensitive on both sides of the border, with some elements of the Khmer Krom campaigning actively for independence and complaining consistently of suffering human rights violations at the hands of Vietnamese authorities - reports Vietnam denies.

However, Cambodia is generally perceived as having one of the freer presses in the region, and the Ministry of Information has previously come under fire for not introducing greater controls, leading to accusations that some individuals use easily obtained professional accreditation as a thinly veiled tool for extortion.

Police said they were still investigating possible motives for Samarth’s murder.

Murdered newspaper editor body found in a suitcase

27 April 2007
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Socheata

The nude body of a man was found near National Road 4, about 200-meter west of Penh Nil mountain. The family of the victim claimed that the dead man is 30-year-old Pov Sam Ath, the editor of the Samleng Khmer Krom (Voice of Khmer Krom). The body of the man was found in the morning of 25 April in the Treng Troyoeung commune, Phnom Sruoch district, Kompons Speu province. The man was murdered and his body was stuffed in a big suitcase which was thrown away along National Road 4. According to police, the body of the dead man bears the mark of a steel bicycle brake cable around his neck, and his face was beat up on his forehead, both his eyeballs were shattered. The family of Pov Sam At said that he disappeared since 20 April, along with a 1993 Toyota Camry. Om Chandara, president of the Association of Journalist Friends, issued a statement condemning the murder of Pov Sam Ath, and considers this murder as a coward act with the intention of threatening the spirit and the safety of journalists.

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Body of the Samleng Khmer Krom editor after he was removed from the suitcase (Photo: Chamroeun, Koh Santepheap newspaper)

Young Journalist Found Murdered

Heng Reaksmey, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
26/04/2007

Pov Sam Ath, 29, a journalist who colleagues say was sympathetic toward the Khmer Kampuchea Krom ethnic group, was found murdered Wednesday.

Police said they found Pov Sam Ath's body hidden in the bushes of a field in Treng Trayung commune, Kampong Speu province. He had been beaten with a baton, asphyxiated and put in a trunk, police said.

Pov Sam Ath was the editor of Samleng Khmer Krom, or Voice of Khmer Krom, a newspaper sympathetic to the cause of the Khmer Kampuchea Krom ethnic group, many of whom live in Vietnam but have cultural ties to Cambodia.

The rights of the ethnic group have become increasingly politicized in recent months, with activists and journalists in Cambodian accusing the Vietnamese of rights abuses against its members.

A family representative said Pov Sam Ath had been missing since April 22 and that the murder may have been the result of a personal grudge, not because of the Khmer Kampuchea Krom.

Om Chandara, director of the Friends of Khmer Journalists Association, said the group regretted the murder and called for a thorough investigation.

Kampong Speu Provincial Police Chief Keo Pisei declined comment Thursday.

Samleng Khmer Krom newspaper founder and publisher found murdered

Thursday April 26, 2007
Cambodian journalist murdered

(Kyodo) - The founder and publisher of a monthly newspaper was found murdered in a forest west of the capital Phnom Penh, a police official told Kyodo News on Thursday.

The body of Pov Sam Ath, 29, was found hanging Wednesday in Pich Nil, said Sam Samuon, deputy police chief of Kampong Speu province.

Pov Sam Ath may have been killed several days ago and a preliminary investigation showed that the case was a revenge killing, Sam Samuon said.

He started Samleng Khmer Krom (Voice of Khmer Krom) in 2002 with a monthly circulation of some 500 copies.

Although Cambodia's press freedoms have remarkably improved over the past few years, threats and lawsuits are still often made against journalists.