Trial held for environmental activist killer's killer

Chut Wutty (Photo: AP)

Thursday, 20 September 2012
Meas Sokchea and Stuart White
The Phnom Penh Post

The man accused of shooting the man who shot environmental activist Chut Wutty last April had been summoned to the Koh Kong Provincial Court to stand trial next month on charges of unintentional homicide, a court official said yesterday.

According to deputy prosecutor Srey Mak Ny, Timbergreen security employee Ran Boroth will appear in court on October 4 to face allegations that he shot military police officer In Rattana while attempting to disarm him after he purportedly gunned down Wutty, a widely admired forest advocate, on April 26.

“[We] have sent [citations] already,” Mak Ny said, adding that the court had called as witnesses “all who have ever been involved in this case”.

The facts surrounding Wutty’s shooting have been muddled from the start, with the government’s official version of events changing at least three times.

Murder Case Surrounding Death of Environmentalist Ready for Court

Chut Wutty was a prominent environmental activist whose work to stop illegal logging and deforestation earned him powerful enemies in the lucrative, illicit industry.

Chut Wutty was shot in the western province of Koh Kong, near an environmentally sensitive forest area he had spent much of his career trying to protect.

19.09.2012

By Heng Reaksmey, VOA Khmer

PHNOM PENH - Koh Kong provincial court will open a hearing early next month into the shooting death of environmentalist Chut Wutty and a military policeman in April.

One suspect, Rann Borath, the chief security guard for a logging company, has been charged with the accidental murder of Chut Wutty’s alleged killer, in a improbable scenario.

The court, which will open the hearing Oct. 4, says Rann Borath accidentally shot to death a military policeman, In Rattana, who was responsible for shooting Chut Wutty at a checkpoint in a remote forest of the province.

A Hero remembered

28 August 2012
By Mu Sochua

Another murder of a national hero swept under the carpet of impunity.

The people of Prey Lang continue the watch and have denounced those who continue to rape Prey Lang. Why doesn't our PM make a five-hour speech about saving Prey Lang?

Death of a Forester

Chut Wutty sought to save one of Indochina’s last great ecological sanctuaries. It cost him his life.

Three months later ... where's the justice for Chut Wutty?

100 Days Commemoration for Chut Wutty

(Photos: Oudomreaksmey Cheuy)

Chut Wutty's 100 Days Commemoration - Saturday 28 July 2012

Little Progress in Murder Case of Slain Activist

Chut Wutty, a prominent Cambodian anti-logging activist who helped expose a secretive state sell-off of national parks was fatally shot on April 25, 2012 in a remote southwestern province, FILE February 21, 2012.

27 July 2012
Kong Sothanarith, VOA Khmer

PHNOM PENH - Three months after the murder of environmental activist Chut Wutty, little forward progress has been made in the case.

Family members say they have heard little from the court that is supposed to be investigating his deadly shooting, even as they organize a 100-day funeral ceremony.

Chut Wutty was shot and killed April 26 in the Cardamom Mountains of Koh Kong province, as he escorted two journalists looking into illegal logging there. A military police official, In Ratana, was also shot and killed in the incident. A private security guard, Rann Borath, was arrested and accused of accidentally killing the In Ratana after the policeman killed Chut Wutty, but skeptics say the scenario was implausible.

“I am worried,” said Hun Rann, Rann Borath’s father. “But I don’t know what to do beside waiting for the trial.” He said he doubted his son was to blame for In Ratana’s death.

Cambodia’s deadly land grab battle

Cambodia is a microcosm of a violent struggle playing out across the globe for control of a shrinking – and therefore increasingly valuable – pool of natural resources. Corinne Purtill reports.

July 24, 2012

Corinne Purtill

China Dialogue

“I [am] really worried about my security but . . . it’s our life, our rice paddy, our forests, our land.”

On 26 April, Cambodian military police shot the environmental campaigner Chut Wutty as he sat at the wheel of his blood-red Land Cruiser. Chut, 46, had just led two journalists through an illegal logging operation in Koh Kong province. As the journalists fled into the bush for safety, they heard two more gunshots behind them.

They emerged to find Chut slumped lifeless in the driver’s seat and military police officer In Rattana lying dead in front of the vehicle. Police initially claimed that the dead officer killed Chut during a heated confrontation, then turned his rifle around and shot himself – twice – in remorse. After a three-day investigation in May, a government panel decreed that a second officer accidentally shot In while trying to disarm him. The case is officially closed.

The murder of Chut Wutty is just one in a string of violent encounters in Cambodia this year between armed authorities and civilians working to protect access to the rapidly diminishing supply of arable land and forest not sealed off by economic concession.

UN response to Mr. Chandara Kin regarding Chut Wutty's murder case

Chandara Kin's letter to Stephen Harper, Prime minister of Canada, regarding the murder of Chut Wutty

Killings of environmentalists appear to be on rise

Wednesday, June 20, 2012
By DENIS D. GRAY
Associated Press

BANGKOK (AP) - The eulogies called Chut Wutty one of the few remaining activists in Cambodia brave enough to fight massive illegal deforestation by the powerful. The environmental watchdog was shot by a military policeman in April as he probed logging operations in one of the country’s last great forests.

Nisio Gomes was the chief of a Brazilian tribe struggling to protect its land from ranchers. Masked men gunned him down in November; his body, quickly dragged into a pickup, has not been seen since.

Around the world, sticking up for the environment can be deadly, and it appears to be getting deadlier.

People who track killings of environmental activists say the numbers have risen dramatically in the last three years. Improved reporting may be one reason, they caution, but they also believe the rising death toll is a consequence of intensifying battles over dwindling supplies of natural resources, particularly in Latin America and Asia.

Killings have occurred in at least 34 countries, from Brazil to Egypt, and in both developing and developed nations, according to an Associated Press review of data and interviews.

Truth in Environmentalist’s Shooting Remains Shrouded

Chut Wutty, Director of the Natural Resource Protection Group, gestures at Botum Sakor National Park in Koh Kong province, Cambodia, February 2012. (Reuters file photo)

Friday, 15 June 2012
Kong Sothanarith, VOA Khmer | Phnom Penh

A rights activist in Koh Kong province said Friday an investigation into the killing of environmental activist Chut Wutty in April had made some progress. But much of the case remains a mystery, said In Kong Chit, a rights investigator in the province for Licadho, who has met with all five witnesses of the April 26 shooting.

Chut Wutty and a military policemen were both shot dead in the incident. Witnesses have not been able to clarify what happened at the moment of the dual shooting, In Kong Chit said.

Donations to Chut Wutty's family through Senator Men Sothavarin on 14 June 2012

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyGo6z32S0A

https://www.box.com/s/9c117957957471f9f98b

CCHR Koh Kong Report

https://www.box.com/s/2989ab98cdec05242531


https://www.box.com/s/accc1c318c41e33bd654

Boeung Kak Protesters Continue Demonstrations [-How much more suffering do they have to endure?]

Poa Sokun Kanha, 11, from Boueng Kak cries as she joins a rally to ask King Norodom Sihamoni to help release of villagers, in front of Royal Palace in Phnom Penh, Thursday, May 31, 2012. The villagers were arrested when they tried to rebuild their homes on the land where their old houses were demolished by the developers, and were sentenced each to two years and half in prison by Phnom Penh Municipality Court on May 24. Phnom Penh's Boueng Kak is a lake area which the government awarded to a Chinese company for commercial development, including a hotel, office buildings and luxury housing. The headband reads: "Good people are in prison and thieves are free." (Photo: AP)

Thursday, 31 May 2012
Heng Reaksmey, VOA Khmer | Phnom Penh

“I appeal to all embassy officials in Cambodia to look for a foster mother to feed my five-year-old son, and I will commit suicide.”

Around 100 protesters from the Boeung Kak development site in Phnom Penh continued demonstrations against the detention of 15 of their representatives on Thursday, submitting an appeal to the Ministry of Justice to help intervene.

Protesters, many of whom were the children of the arrested women, sang songs or shaved their heads in a sign of desperation.

“I appeal to all embassy officials in Cambodia to look for a foster mother to feed my five-year-old son, and I will commit suicide,” said Doung Chhoeut, 45, who said he lost everything in a forced eviction at Boeung Kak.

CAMBODIA: The culture of impunity and violence must stop

A Joint Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission

Phnom Penh, 30th May 2012- We, Cambodian and International civil society organizations represented in this statement, condemn the use of armed force and escalating violence against citizens peacefully defending their land, labor and natural resources rights. We are referring to not only the events earlier last week on 22nd May, when dozens of peaceful Boeung Kak Lake (BKL) protesters were violently dispersed and two days later when fifteen (fourteen women and one male) BKL residents were sent to Prey Sar prison and charged and convicted of unfounded criminal offenses, but also the recent shooting incidents—the killings of environmental activist Chut Wutty in Koh Kong province and 14-year old girl Heng Chantha in Kratie province, and the shooting of three young women protesting for better working conditions in Svay Rieng province. These incidents are particularly disturbing because they indicate an increasing readiness on the part of security and military forces to use lethal force against civilians.

The year 2012 has already witnessed at least five such instances, not including numerous other human rights abuses. We are deeply concerned, shocked and saddened about this escalation of violence, particularly in disputes related to Economic Land Concessions (ELCs). Pursuant to Article 41 of the Cambodian Constitution and international conventions to which Cambodia is a party, all citizens enjoy a fundamental right to free expression, which includes the right to protect against decisions of public authorities that infringe on their rights and livelihood . In practice, the exercise of this right is all too often denied or met with violent repression.

Cambodian citizens have a right to live under the rule of law. They deserve to be protected, served with dignity and fairness based on universally agreed basic rights. Public authorities not only have a duty and obligation to ensure that a culture of impunity is never condoned but also must make fighting against impunity a priority. All instances involving the use of firearms against civilians should be promptly, thoroughly and impartially investigated. Investigations that find shootings to be “accidental” or the result of low-ranking officers acting on their own initiative should be supported by evidence gathered in a rigorous, transparent manner. At the very least, protection against threats and intimidation should be provided to witnesses and all victims should have access to effective judicial verdict and justice.

Chut Wutty witness had eyes elsewhere

A woman carries a photograph of slain environmental activist Chut Wutty at his funeral in Kandal province last month. Chut Wutty was gunned down in Koh Kong province on April 26 of this year. Photograph: Will Baxter/Phnom Penh Post

Tuesday, 29 May 2012
May Titthara
The Phnom Penh Post

Another witness to the fatal shooting of prominent environmentalist Chut Wutty and military police officer In Rattana has said he did not see who shot the men after testifying in Koh Kong provincial court yesterday.

Puom Ravin, a 37-year-old employee of the logging firm Timbergreen said he was looking the other way when heard gun shots at Veal Bei point in Modul Seima district’s Bak Klang commune on April 26, and then turned around to discover both men dead.

“I don’t know who shot those two people dead,” he said, adding that it sounded like Chut Wutty’s leg then fell on the accelerator of the car he was inside of, causing the engine to rev,” he said.

He added that, in total, there had been seven people at the crime scene who he later learned were Chut Wutty, In Rattana, a man only known as Chhorn, So Sopheap, Ran Borath and two journalists.

Cambodian forest campaigners fight rampant logging

Cambodian villagers from other provinces inspect piles of timber in Koh Kong province on May 11. Frustrated by government inaction, Cambodian citizen patrollers are risking their lives to take on the country's illegal loggers in a bid to save their shrinking forests. (AFP Photo/Tang Chhin Sothy)

Cambodian residents march toward the location where Chhut Vuthy -- president of the Natural Resource Conservation Group -- was shot dead in Koh Kong province on April 26. (AFP Photo/Tang Chhin Sothy)

Frustrated by government inaction, Cambodian citizen patrollers are risking their lives to take on the country's illegal loggers in a bid to save their shrinking forests. (AFP Photo/)

Cambodians held a memorial service on May 11 in a remote forest where prominent environmental activist Chhut Vuthy was shot dead two weeks ago, vowing to keep his legacy alive. Frustrated by government inaction, Cambodian citizen patrollers are risking their lives to take on the country's illegal loggers in a bid to save their shrinking forests. (AFP Photo/Tang Chhin Sothy)

A Cambodian Buddhist monk living in the Aoral wildlife sanctuary leads children through the forest in Kampong Speu province. (AFP Photo/Tang Chhin Sothy)

05/25/2012
By Suy Se | AFP

Frustrated by government inaction, Cambodian citizen patrollers are risking their lives to take on the country's illegal loggers in a bid to save their shrinking forests.

The shooting of a prominent environmentalist by a military policeman last month after he refused to hand over logging photos rocked the kingdom and shone an unflattering light on government conservation efforts.

Forest communities who depend on the woodlands for their survival say they plan to keep Chhut Vuthy's brand of grassroots activism alive by stepping up the patrols he introduced last year to monitor forest crimes.

"We are all Chhut Vuthy," supporters said at a recent memorial rally in the remote jungle in southwestern Koh Kong province where the 45-year-old was gunned down.

Donation to Chut Wutty's family from generous Cambodian donors in Mulhouse, France

Khmer Love Khmer message on the arrest of Ven. Loun Sovath