The Kompong Cham provincial court is scheduled today to try two policemen and a former militia member accused of killing a Funcinpec commune candidate and a Sam Rainsy Party activist.
The trial is considered by Human Rights Watch to be a “key test for Cambodian justice.”
The three accused—Eang Vat, Lang Sareth and Yun Samoun—are charged by authorities with fatally shooting Funcinpec commune candidate Thon Phally and Sam Rainsy Party activist Phuong Sophat on Nov 14 in Srolop commune, Tbong Khmum district. The killings were some of the early incidents of violence leading up to the Feb 3 commune elections.
A report from Human Rights Watch released Wednesday called the Kompong Cham killings “politically motivated,” and cited 15 killings of Sam Rainsy Party and Funcinpec members and commune candidates in the year leading up to the election.
Human Rights Watch also pointed out 275 reports of intimidation, threats and harassment “directed against candidates and supporters of parties running against the incumbent CPP.
“The government must show that political violence will be punished. Otherwise, how can there be free and fair parliamentary elections next year?” said Mike Jendrzejczyk, Washington director for Human Rights Watch’s Asia Division, in an e-mailed statement.
“Without progress in [the Kompong Cham trial scheduled today] and other outstanding cases, the prospects for free elections in 2003 and beyond looks bleak.”
The Human Rights Watch recommended that ending impunity for election-related crimes should be a condition for election aid during the upcoming national elections, scheduled for July 2003.
“We do not ignore this issue,” said co-Minister of Interior Sar Kheng on Tuesday. “I, on behalf of the government, do not support the perpetrators [of election-related crimes] and terrorists.”
Sar Kheng, however, maintained that the Feb 3 elections were free and fair.
Since much of the election violence and intimidation was concentrated in Kompong Cham province, including the killings of Thon Phally and Phuong Sophat, and a “sustained campaign of intimidation” against opposition candidates, the outcome of the trial today is considered a top priority for finding justice for election-related killings.
The UN previously has accused the three suspects of being members of the “flashlight gang,” a group of five policemen and militia members in Kompong Cham who intimidated Funcinpec commune candidates and stole from villagers in Tbong Khmum district.
The courts have not yet released any detailed evidence against Eang Vat, Lang Sareth and Yun Samoun. But the Human Rights Watch reported cited Thon Phally’s wife as having identified Eang Vath by his other name, Ian Saveth, as the deputy police chief of neighboring Longieng commune who she claims killed her husband.
Both Thon Phally and Phuong Sophat were killed in the same Srolop commune less than two hours apart. The same gun was reported by the Ministry of Interior to be used in the two killings.
The gang was found by the UN and Human Rights Watch to have continued intimidating Funcinpec members after the killings on Nov 14.
About 10 days after the killing, armed men in military uniforms matching the descriptions of the three accused were reported by the UN and Human Rights Watch to have come to the houses of at least two Funcinpec members, calling out their names. It is still unclear if the gang threatened these Funcinpec members.
Kompong Cham authorities said they are still looking for several members of the flashlight gang in connection with the killings of Thon Phally and Phuong Sophat.
