Police have accused a gang led by Nhim Pov, a nephew to Prime Minister Hun Sen, for the beatings and stabbings of three Japanese men outside a Phnom Penh dance club Saturday night.
Police in Daun Penh district said Nhim Pov and five others ordered the tourists to leave a food stall table outside the Holiday Night Club. When the tourists, all men between the ages of 27 and 30, refused to move a fight followed.
Two of the men were seriously injured after being stabbed in the stomach by broken bottles, while the third received minor injuries after being hit with a teapot, police said. The two seriously injured men, one with a punctured liver, were sent to Calmette Hospital for surgery, Municipal Immigration Police Chief Pol Pithey said.
Municipal Penal Police Chief Khuon Sophon said the 2:45 am attack was not reported until two hours after it occurred and the attackers escaped. He said “gangsters” were suspected, though he would not say if police were looking for Nhim Pov.
Japanese Embassy officials Sunday refused to comment on the attack, but Phnom Penh Governor Chea Sophara said the embassy is concerned “because two of the injuries are very serious.”
City officials, including Chea Sophara, have admitted that several violent gangs operate in Phnom Penh, but critics have said little is done to confront these gangs because they are often associated with the children of senior government officials.
Nhim Pov’s older brother, Nhim Pisey, was arrested but released in August 1999 for a shooting outside the Holiday Night Club that injured two. The father of both is Cambodia’s ambassador to Burma.
(Additional reporting by Seth Meixner)
