Four Cambodian men charged in failed bomb plots

Mon, 12 Jan 2009
DPA

Phnom Penh-Cambodian police charged four men with attempted murder and terrorism Monday in failed bomb plots against the Ministry of Defence and state-owned television in the capital early this month. The four men were arrested last week for allegedly planning the foiled January 2 attack, in which two small TNT bombs were laid outside the ministry and the TV3 headquarters in central Phnom Penh.

All four men appeared in court and were also charged with crimes relating to the illegal recruitment of armed people.

Prosecutors argued the men were members of small rebel group, which they said had links to other militant organizations and planned the attacks to destabilize the government and attract international attention.

Police said last week that the apparent leader of the group, Som Ek, had also confessed to ordering a thwarted bomb attempt at the Cambodian-Vietnamese friendship monument on one of Phnom Penh's main boulevards in July 2007.

Police also alleged Som Ek, also known as Ti To, had told them his group received funding from international supporters.

Som Ek is a dual Thai-Cambodian citizen and was a military policeman during the early 1990s, police said.

Three Held, More Sought in Bomb Plot

By Heng Reaksmey, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
09 January 2009

Cambodian police continue to search for suspects in an alleged bombing plot, having arrested since Tuesday a married couple in the border town of Poipet and one man in Kandal province on the outskirts of the capital.

Government spokesman Khieu Kanharith said Friday the suspects will be displayed to the public in a press conference at the Ministry of Interior Saturday morning, before being sent to Phnom Penh Municipal Court.

Authorities hope to charge the three with involvement in a plot to explode a series of TNT explosive devices at two government buildings: one in the garden in front of the Ministry of National Defense and two on a street corner near the headquarters of TV3.

Suspect Ty To, 51, who has four different aliases, was arrested in Poipet Tuesday, along with his wife, Houl Kim Lang, 28, while Phy Savoeung, 49, was arrested Thursday afternoon in Kandal’s Kien Svay district.

Khieu Kanharith said police are still looking for additional suspects, including a mastermind behind the plot.

The three bombs were found by authorities on Friday, Jan. 2, and were disposed of by a unit from the Cambodian Mine Action Center that afternoon.

Police detain man for 2 major bomb plots in Phnom Penh

PHNOM PENH, Jan. 9 (Xinhua) -- A man allegedly involved in the 2007 explosion of the Cambodian-Vietnamese Friendship Monument and the 2009 foiled bomb plots in downtown Phnom Penh has been arrested, according to national media on Friday.

Banteay Meanchey provincial police chief Hun Hean said that his officers working with the Ministry of Interior caught 46-year-old Ty To at his home on Wednesday and found 53 different bomb-making items there, including TNT and radio devices, English-language newspaper the Cambodia Daily reported.

"(Ty To) told the police that he was involved with the attempt to blow up the Cambodian-Vietnamese Friendship Monument and also with the TNT case on the Russian Boulevard (in Phnom Penh)," the newspaper said.

On Jan. 2, 2009, the police detonated three bombs outside the Ministry of National Defense and the state-run No. 3 TV station.

On July 29, 2007, a small bomb exploded right beside the Cambodian-Vietnamese Friendship Monument. Two men were later arrested to serve terms in prison.

Neither accident caused any damage and casualties.