The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a verdict sentencing one man to life in prison and two others to 15 years behind bars for the 2014 kidnapping and murder of a 25-year-old man found dead in a Kompong Speu province quarry.
The day Heng Piseth went missing, his parents—owners of a bakery chain in Kandal province—paid kidnappers a fifth of a $500,000 ransom demand.
After Grassroots Democracy Party (GDP) candidates for the upcoming commune elections took their seats inside the leafy grounds of the party headquarters in Phnom Penh for a pre-election congress on Thursday, they rose to their feet and bowed their heads in remembrance of their founding father: Kem Ley.
The popular political analyst, who was gunned down on a sleepy Sunday morning in July while reading the morning newspapers at the convenience store of a gas station in the capital, founded the GDP in 2015 along with former civil society leaders including Yeng Virak and Yang Saing Koma.
At least 30 villagers from Oddar Meanchey province who say their land is being encroached upon were blocked by Daun Penh district authorities on Monday as they attempted to march to the National Assembly to deliver a petition asking for the premier’s intervention, they said.
A group of 122 families in Anlong Veng district’s eponymous commune claim that a Cambodian company, Kin Sokharith, has been clearing portions of their collective 400 hectares of land since February, according to village representative Sat Bora, 34. Local officials have done nothing to assist them in protecting their land, Mr. Bora said.
Three brothers in Banteay Meanchey province, along with their father, were arrested for hiding the murder of their oldest brother amid a dispute over a lost telephone, an official said on Wednesday.
Returning to their home in Mongkol Borei district’s Kork Ballaing commune after a night drinking at a neighbor’s house, Mork Ven, 28, and his youngest brother, Mork Chit, 18, remained outside the house bickering, according to Sin Narak, deputy police chief of the province’s major crimes bureau.
In the latest warning of violence and bloodshed from the ruling party, Defense Minister Tea Banh threatened on Sunday to “smash the teeth” of political opponents who demonstrate against the June 4 commune election results.
Speaking at the opening of administrative buildings on the outskirts of Siem Reap City, General Banh appeared to invoke opposition protests in the wake of the disputed 2013 national election, vowing never to let similar demonstrations happen again.
The Land Management Minister informed residents of Phnom Penh’s White Building on Friday that they should end compensation negotiations and accept the offer from the Japanese developer that plans to flatten the iconic housing complex.
The government and nearly 500 families have been unable to reach an agreement over compensation for their homes, with residents seeking $2,000 per square meter, and the developer, Arakawa, offering $1,400 per sq m.
The visiting premier of Laos this week sought to downplay reports of a tense standoff between Laotian and Cambodian troops in February over construction projects inside a disputed patch of the border, according to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Facebook page.
Mr. Hun Sen’s Laotian counterpart, Thongloun Sisoulith, is in Phnom Penh for the World Economic Forum on Asean and met with the prime minister at his office on Wednesday, said a post to Mr. Hun Sen’s Facebook page on the same day.
Thirty-five of the 41 fish-farming houseboats that fled the Kilometer 7 area in the capital’s Russei Keo district earlier this month due to massive fish deaths have returned, a district official said on Thursday.
Sou Sorkun, chief of the district’s administration bureau, said only six fish farmers who usually reside in his district chose to remain downriver near central Phnom Penh, because those six boats were larger and they feared losing their stocks.
Female representation among candidates for the upcoming commune elections increased only slightly—1.6 percent—compared to the 2012 election cycle, and too few of the women were endorsed by their party as the primary candidate, according to an NGO report released on Tuesday.
The near-flatlining since the previous election cycle highlighted a mismatch between political promises and reality, said Seng Reasey, a project coordinator at women’s rights NGO Silaka, which wrote the report alongside the Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia (Comfrel).
The prime minister’s older brother Hun San has sent a letter to the Interior Ministry asking for “serious action” to be taken against a deputy National Police chief over an alleged dispute on his land in Banteay Meanchey province.
The letter, dated May 2, said Lieutenant General Mok Chito had abused his power and allowed his subordinates to occupy Mr. San’s 119-hectare plot of land in Poipet City and intimidate his employees.
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