Siem Reap provincial authorities arrested a New Zealand national and his Cambodian wife for sex crimes last week, while the Svay Rieng provincial court convicted a 15-year-old boy of raping a young girl.
Police on Thursday charged New Zealander Graham Robert Cleghorn, 55, with the rape of numerous girls, according to Sun Bunthang, chief of Siem Reap’s Anti-Human Trafficking and Underage Protection Bureau. His 25-year-old wife, Bun Toeur, was charged with procuring the girls.
“They brought the girls, aged 14 to 18, from poor rural families,” Sun Bunthang said. “They worked as house servants but slept with the man at night.”
The provincial court issued the arrest warrants after the three girls told police that Cleghorn had raped them repeatedly, Sun Bunthang said.
He added that police had been investigating the case since early 2003 but had only recently obtained the evidence required to arrest the couple.
“He was charged with raping three girls in 2002. His wife was charged with pimping,” investigating Judge Ang Mealatey said Friday. “According to the [alleged victim’s] stories, there were many more girls, but we cannot find them yet,” he said.
Police found five girls at the suspects’ house. They are now at the Cambodian Women’s Crisis Center’s provincial office, police said.
Ang Mealatey said Sunday that a representative of the British Embassy had checked on Cleghorn in jail over the weekend, as New Zealand does not have its own diplomatic corps in Cambodia. He also said that a trial has not been scheduled.
On Tuesday, Chan Sovannarong, 15, was sentenced to 12 years in prison and fined 1.5 million riel (about $375), for the rape of a 7-year-old girl, said Svay Rieng provincial court Chief Pen Sarith.
Police arrested Chan Sovannarong on Aug 30 after the girl’s parents complained to police, Pen Sarith said Sunday.
The week before his conviction, police raided another Svay Pak brothel, following a series of raids in the area earlier this year.
Meng Say, chief of Phnom Penh’s Anti-Trafficking Police, said Sunday that his officers had busted a Svay Pak brothel on Oct 17. Police arrested three women and one man and “rescued” 22 Vietnamese prostitutes. He said the sex workers were delivered to a shelter run by the anti-trafficking NGO Afesip. Afesip adviser Pierre Legros confirmed that the women had been in his organization’s custody, but added that some already slipped away.
(Additional reporting by Kuch Naren and Porter Barron)
