Senior MoI cops: "...may the genies and all the magic objects destroy us, and kill us with bullets, lightning, cars or motorcycles hit us ..."

Senior police officers are taking oath at the Appeals Court

Thursday, August 30, 2007
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Socheata

Senior police officers from the Ministry of Interior (MoI) were taking oath at the Appeals Court in the afternoon of 27 August 2007, to become judicial police officers, following the ratification of the new criminal code by the king on 10 August, and its effective date of use set on 21 August. During the oath taking ceremony, these senior police officers used strong wordings, such as: “If we violate the law, or misapply the law, may the genies and all the magic objects destroy us, and kill us with bullets, lightning, (may) cars or motorcycles hit us (dead), (may) the tigers eat us, (may) the snakes bite us, and let it be that in the future, we should be separated from our parents, let our children be separated from us, for several hundreds lives to come.”

ECCC judicial police get training based on "international law," in stark contrast to what Cambodian judges insist on: Cambodian law

Thursday, February 8, 2007
ECCC Judicial Police Learn New Techniques

By Douglas Gillison
THE CAMBODIA DAILY

The 120 judicial police officers assigned to the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia are learning new investigatory techniques to suit the special needs of the tribunal, according to ECCC officials.

Between Feb 5 and 17, four groups of 30 officers will receive instruction from the International Institute for Criminal Investigation in a seminar supported by the Swiss and New Zealand governments and the tribunal itself, Helen Jarvis, ECCC chief of public affairs, said Tuesday.

"It’s training based on international law," said ECCC Co-Investigating Judge Marcel Lemonde, whose office helped prepare the seminar. In the absence of the tribunal's internal rules, Lemonde has yet to work with the police as no cases have been forwarded to him for investigation. "For now, it is training that is preparatory," he said.

ECCC Co-Prosecutor Robert Petit described the work of the police officers with an example of an alleged instance of mass murder, for which police will have to take statements from many witnesses.

Judicial police will use different means of gathering evidence for the tribunal, he said, "because the elements of the crime that need to be proven [at the ECCC] are different from the elements of crimes that are in national jurisdiction."