On Wednesday, Cambodia’s embattled former opposition leader Kem Sokha will finally have his day in court, more than two years after being arrested in a midnight raid on his Phnom Penh home.
As the president of the Supreme Court-dissolved Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP), he has long been a major figure in his country’s political opposition. But for all the visibility of Sokha’s work through the years, only a select few will be able to watch as he heads to trial to face a charge of “treason and espionage” decried by international human rights groups as politically motivated.
Sokha was originally arrested in September 2017, with the accusations relating to a video shot in 2013 in which he thanked the US for their support and said he had received their guidance in planning his political trajectory.