Killer of top Cambodian government critic jailed for life
NAN-F-50
Sentence
Phnom Penh, March 23, 2017 (dpa/NAN) A Cambodian court on Thursday sentenced Oeuth Ang to life imprisonment for the premeditated murder of prominent political analyst and government critic, Kem Ley.
Ang, a 43-year-old labourer, went on trial at Phnom Penh Municipal Court on March 1 for allegedly shooting Ley at a gas station in the Cambodian capital in July 2016.
He claims to have killed Ley because he had paid him 3,000 dollars through an unnamed middleman to secure him a job which never materialised.
The murder, however, is widely seen as politically motivated.
Aside from being a well known critic of the government, Ley had also recently founded his own rural political party, the Grassroots Democratic Party (GDP).
Phil Robertson, Deputy Asia Director of Human Rights Watch said that Ang was simply a “scapegoat” in a larger murder case.
“No one believes his lame story about debts owed by Kem Ley, or that he acted alone, without backing by influential people.
“The Cambodia government wants this trial concluded, so they can try to bury the truth, and shout down demands to investigate whether this was a contract killing and who was likely behind it,” he said.
Sixty-five civil society groups in Cambodia also condemned the conviction, questioning Ang’s motives and the thoroughness of the court’s investigation.
“This motive was not challenged by the trial judges who appeared satisfied to accept Ang as the sole perpetrator despite its total lack of plausibility and the questionable credibility of Ang’s testimony,” the group said.
The case has had a chilling effect on Cambodian civil society ahead of local elections due to take place this year, according to ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights.
The group of Southeast Asian MPs said in a March 2017 report that Ley’s murder “cast a dark shadow over both civil society and the opposition in Cambodia”.
“It has increased concerns, anyone may be targeted for being too critical of the government or for being too popular.”
Ley’s death prompted an outpouring of grief in Cambodia, with tens of thousands of people turning up to accompany a convoy carrying his body to his home province last year. (dpa/NAN)
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Edited by Celine-Damilola Oyewole/Abdullahi Yusuf