Fresh News

DEPOSED Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra has told supporters he plans to travel to Cambodia, a Thai opposition source and media reports said Wednesday.

Speaking to members of the Puea Thai party – known as the Red Shirts – by video conference Tuesday, Thaksin announced plans to travel to Cambodia following an invitation from Prime Minister Hun Sen to serve as his economic adviser, said a woman identified as a Puea Thai member but who refused to give her name.

“Thaksin said he would fly to Cambodia soon to thank Hun Sen,” the Bangkok Post quoted another anonymous Puea Thai official as saying.

Bangkok says it would seek extradition if Thaksin – ousted in a 2006 coup and self-exiled to avoid jail on corruption charges – sought refuge in Cambodia.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Koy Kuong said the government has had no official communication with Thaksin recently, but that a visit to Cambodia was plausible. “I think it could be true, because so far, Prime Minister Hun Sen has given the green light to [Thaksin],” Koy Kuong said.
The source said, however, that Puea Thai was unsure such a visit would be prudent.

“We don’t agree with the idea of Thaksin going to Cambodia.… He’s caused so much trouble for the country recently that he needs to fix before he goes to Cambodia,” she said.

THE Court of Appeal has upheld the defamation conviction of opposition lawmaker Mu Sochua, an outcome the Sam Rainsy Party parliamentarian described as “politically motivated”.

In a hearing on Wednesday, Judge Seng Sivutha affirmed the ruling handed down by the Municipal Court in August, which found Mu Sochua guilty of defaming Prime Minister Hun Sen and ordered her to pay a total of 16.5 million riels (US$3,963) in fines and compensation.

During the hearing, Mu Sochua was defiant, appearing in court without a defence attorney and refusing to answer any questions because of her lack of counsel, she said.

“I don’t want other lawyers to become victims like Kong Sam Onn,” she said, referring to her former defence lawyer, who resigned and defected to the ruling Cambodian People’s Party in July after he was also sued for defamation by the premier.

After the hearing, she rejected the court’s decision and pledged to take her appeal to the Supreme Court.

“I’m not going to pay the fine – I’ve said that before clearly,” she said. “I’m just giving the courts of Cambodia another chance to prove that they can do their job.”

In a statement released after the hearing, the SRP decried the outcome as a “mockery of justice” that merely mimicked the verdict handed down in August. “The Appeal Court, ignoring principles of fair trial, blindly affirmed the decision of the Municipal Court: The accused was denied her rights to be represented by a lawyer of her choice, and to be judged by an independent and impartial tribunal,” the party stated.

The prime minister sued Mu Sochua for defamation in April after she filed her own complaint, claiming he referred to her in a speech as a cheung klang – a Khmer term meaning “strong leg” but considered derogatory when used in relation to women. Her own lawsuit against Hun Sen was dismissed by the Appeal Court on October 14.

Hun Sen’s lawyer, Ky Tech, said during the hearing that Mu Sochua’s comments about her own lawyer were an attempt to politicise the issue, and that the wording of Mu Sochua’s lawsuit – in which she requested 500 riels in symbolic compensation – was clear evidence that she aimed to attack and insult the prime minister.

“She held a press conference to defame Samdech Hun Sen and said she would sue [him]. She demanded 500 riels, but this amount could not wash away the stain on her reputation if she had really been defamed by Hun Sen,” Ky Tech said.

“There was only one aim – to defame Samdech Hun Sen.”

Rights activists, however, said the verdict was a clear case of political manipulation.

“Poor people can’t make complaints against high-ranking people. This is the custom of Cambodia,” said Chan Soveth, a senior monitor at local rights group Adhoc.

The outcome of the appeal, he said, was a foregone conclusion from the moment the original verdict was delivered.

“The Phnom Penh court had made its decision already, [a] decision made not by the court but by high-ranking people. The Appeal Court could not make a new ruling,” he said.

Thida Keus, executive director of rights group Silaka and secretary general of the Committee to Promote Women in Politics, said she was disappointed the court did not conduct its own investigations into the case, adding that the verdict could discourage women from getting involved in politics.

“Since [Mu Sochua] is among the most proactive women activists and lawmakers in Cambodia, I am disappointed she wasn’t given more respect,” she said.

“I feel very sad that this has happened – not just for women, but also for the public and the international community who know the judicial system in Cambodia is not free.”

The ruling came a week after the Governing Council of the Geneva-based Inter-Parliamentary Union adopted a resolution expressing “deep concern” at the sentencing of Mu Sochua for making statements that “clearly fall within the limits of her freedom of expression”.

The resolution, adopted in Geneva on October 21, also decried the removal of Mu Sochua’s parliamentary immunity in June to pave the way for the defamation case, and said she “did not enjoy her right to legal counsel of her choice” following Kong Sam Onn’s resignation in July.

Shops burn as men gather at a market following a car bomb blast in Peshawar, Pakistan, on Wednesday that killed more than 80 people, underscoring the scale of the extremist threat as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited.

SOUTH Korean-owned Willbes garment factory in Phnom Penh closed its doors for cleaning on Tuesday, a day after hundreds of workers fainted following exposure to a chemical spray.

Pok Vanthat, director of the Labour Health Department at the Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training, confirmed that 414 of the factory’s 1,540 workers fainted on Monday. He also confirmed that the spray involved was a pesticide, although he couldn’t identify which one.

“We found that the factory was spraying chemical pesticide in its warehouse ... to kill insects that might damage the clothes” he said. “[Factories] should use chemicals that present the minimum danger to workers.” An investigation conducted on the day of the incident also found the factory was improperly ventilated.

Chea Mony, president of the Free Trade Union of the Workers of the Kingdom of Cambodia, said factories should be educated in the safe use of chemicals. “Some factories do not even provide masks for workers to wear”, he said.

This is the fourth time in two months that mass fainting has hit garment workers. In early September, 130 workers passed out at the Maurea garment factory in Phnom Penh’s Russey Keo district due to the overuse of pesticides. The same month, 124 workers fainted over the course of several days at nearby Golden Mile factory because of poor ventilation.

KING Norodom Sihamoni is backing a local rights group’s letter urging intervention in the case of a controversial Ratanakkiri judge accused of irregularities in a simmering land dispute, the NGO said.

News of the unusual move from the monarch came a day after Justice Minister Ang Vong Vathana announced that Ratanakkiri provincial court Judge Thor Saron would face an investigation over an unrelated allegation that he haddriven for personal use a truck that had been impounded as evidence in a murder trial.

According to the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights (CCHR), King Sihamoni has written to Ang Vong Vathana, a member of the Supreme Council of Magistracy, urging him to conduct an investigation into Thor Saron.

CCHR investigator Chhim Savudth said his group received a copy of the letter Tuesday from the King’s cabinet.

Judge disputes allegations
In September, the CCHR urged an investigation into allegations against Thor Saron regarding an ongoing land dispute in Ratanakkiri involving ethnic minorities and a private company.

The judge had been accused of releasing some of the arrested villagers in exchange for land.

The judge on Tuesday welcomed the King’s apparent intervention.

“I welcome the royal letter to conduct an investigation, but I would countersue these people for wrongly accusing me of releasing culprits in return for a sum of money and land,” Thor Saron said.

“It’s a complete slander against me,” he said.

Say investigation of their client lacks transparency, fairness.

DEFENCE lawyers for former Khmer Rouge foreign minister Ieng Sary have turned up the heat on the war crimes tribunal’s Office of Co-Investigating Judges (OCIJ), saying investigators are stonewalling requests for details about the investigation process.

In a motion of appeal filed Tuesday, Ieng Sary’s lawyers reiterated the contents of a request filed in May seeking additional information about the ongoing investigation of four former regime leaders, saying they have not received a timely response from the OCIJ.

“This is an issue which directly involves the transparency and fairness of the proceedings,” lawyers Michael Karnavas and Ang Udom wrote in the appeal.

“By failing to provide a timely response, the OCIJ is deliberately concealing information related to the quality, scope and methodology of its investigation.”

Among the requests lodged in May – and reiterated in Tuesday’s appeal – were demands for information relating to the overall strategy of the investigation, the qualifications of the investigating judges and “the collection and analysis of exculpatory evidence”.

The latter became a fraught issue on Friday, when Ieng Sary’s lawyers filed a separate motion requesting the removal of International Co-Investigating Judge Marcel Lemonde, saying he has shown an “impermissible bias” in his conduct of the investigation.

The motion was based on an account provided by Wayne Bastin, a former chief of the OCIJ’s Intelligence and Analysis Unit, who quoted Lemonde as saying investigators should “find more inculpatory evidence than exculpatory evidence” in the tribunal’s case against four former Khmer Rouge leaders.

Also Tuesday, So Sovann, the lawyer for former Khmer Rouge head of state Khieu Samphan, filed a similar motion seeking the removal of Lemonde and the release of his client.

“My client Khieu Samphan must be released immediately because … this judge did not respect his obligation to be neutral,” he told reporters.
In light of recent allegations, Karnavas said the appeal would bear heavily on the court’s second case, due to begin next year.

The “entire process of investigating has been one of immense doubt and concern – primarily because of the complexity of the case and the lack of transparency,” he said.

However, court spokesman Lars Olsen said the request filed by Ieng Sary’s team in May was being considered by the OCIJ, who had every intention of responding to the defence’s concerns.

“The co-investigating judges have received many requests from the defence teams, which raise a lot of legal issues that are very time-consuming,” he said.

Although internal rules place the judges under strict obligation to conduct investigations impartially – searching for evidence that both incriminates and exculpates defendants – observers remain uncertain about the outcome of the allegations against Lemonde.

“The eventual outcome relating to these allegations is entirely too speculative until we know the true nature and scope of the alleged misconduct,” said David Scheffer, director of the Centre for International Human Rights at Chicago’s Northwestern University School of Law.

“If the facts show that investigations proceeded on a fair and comprehensive basis to explore exculpatory evidence regardless of the co-investigating judge’s alleged remarks, the allegations may prove inconsequential,” he said.

Also Tuesday, Amnesty International, the International Commission of Jurists and the REDRESS Trust submitted an amicus curiae brief to the Pre-Trial Chamber pertaining to a decision by the OCIJ regarding the use of “torture-tainted evidence” in the case of former Khmer Rouge minister of social action, Ieng Thirith.

The OCIJ in July dismissed a request from Ieng Thirith’s defence team to deem all such evidence inadmissible.

In their brief, filed September 25, the organisations urged the chamber to “reject any attempts to admit statements obtained by torture as evidence in any proceedings”.

CAMBODIA is in the process of modernising its national defences, Prime Minister Hun Sen said Tuesday, on the same day that the National Assembly adopted articles of a law regulating chemical weapons and the substances that may be used to produce them.

Speaking during a ceremony to commemorate the 15th anniversary of Royal Cambodian Armed Forces Brigade 70, his personal bodyguard unit, Hun Sen said the Cambodian government “has been working to develop and modernise the national defence sector in order to give our armed forces the chance to fulfill their duties effectively”.

Parliamentarians, meanwhile, passed articles contained in six of the 13 chapters of a law relating to the regulation of chemical, nuclear and biological weapons in a relatively peaceful session of the National Assembly on Tuesday.

The law would make the production or transportation of such weapons punishable by sentences of 20 years to life in prison. The sale and distribution of materials that may be used to manufacture such weapons, even if the materials are being used for another purpose, will carry a steep fine if it is done without advance permission from the government.

In an appearance before the assembly, Defence Minister Tea Banh urged lawmakers to ratify these penalties, warning of the castastrophic environmental and humanitarian consequences of chemical and nuclear weapons.

Friday, 02 October 2009 15:04 Peter Olszewski and Lily Partland

Siem Reap town submerged as main river burst its banks following typhoon.Siem Reap
SIEM Reap found itself underwater Thursday after the downpour from Ketsana caused the swollen Siem Reap River to burst its banks. The entire downtown area was submerged in waist-high water, and the city’s social epicentre, Pub Street, was awash. As of Thursday night, the local death toll had risen to three, with provincial Chief of Cabinet Ly Samreth saying, “The flooding is more serious than before”. “A Khmer man died in Siem Reap town on Wednesday when he fell into an open pipe and drowned,” he said. He added that business people were losing money.“Cambodian people and businesses are losing money because they cannot work,” he said.“Only 30 percent of the market stalls have remained open.”National Road 6 was flooded in seven places and 241 schools were also flooded – 95 of which had to close.Provincial officials reported 17 people injured and 60 homes destroyed, although some rural areas had yet to report.Observers reported an almost festive feel as children capitalised on the crisis. Some were seen steering remote-controlled toy boats through waterlogged streets; others used polystyrene lids as makeshift surfboards. Several people dragged nets through town in the hope of catching fish.Upstream, the situation was more serious, with reports of flash floods. In drier rural areas, people complained of being invaded by centipedes and other fauna seeking shelter.Local authorities said they were preparing food and medicine to take to Sonikum district, which suffered the worst effects of the weather.