It’s been nearly a month since the premeditated torture and murder of two teenage sisters and their 4-year-old cousin at their home in Phnom Penh’s Tuol Kok district, but no arrests have yet been made in the case, police said Monday.
On May 17, two men entered the home of Tep Darong, the president of the Royal Academy for Judicial Professions, and brutally tortured his two daughters—Im Chanbory, 17, and Im Srey Pich, 15—and his young nephew, Im Raza, before finally killing the three with blows from a steel pipe.
Deputy municipal military police chief Pol Davy on Monday called the killings the most high profile case Phnom Penh authorities have had to investigate, but he had little else to say. “Our investigation has two suspects for whom we have the identity,” he said. “But they are very smart and never stay in the same place for long.”
Phnom Penh Municipal Police Chief Touch Naruth had little else to add. “Although the suspects are not yet arrested, our investigation police are following [this case] very seriously,” he said.
The city’s top police officer also said that his officers are also still investigating the July 14, 2008, double killing of Khim Sambor, a journalist for the opposition-affiliated newspaper Moneaksekar Khmer, and his 21-year-old son, Khat Sarinpheata, who were gunned down as they sat on their motorcycle at a busy traffic light in Phnom Penh.
However, no arrests have been made in that case either, Mr Naruth said. “We have never lost hope, and we hope to arrest the suspects very soon,” he said, adding that police are still working with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation to solve the killing of Mr Sambor and his son.
A brother of Mr Sambor, however, said that his family feels the authorities are not doing all within their means to catch the killers of the father and son. “If the government wished to find the suspects, or if Samdech Hun Sen ordered the police to find the killers, then it would be done,” said Him Rorang, Mr Sambor’s younger brother.
Michael Dehncke, the special FBI agent who has helped the Cambodian police in the double murder investigation, could not be reached for comment.
