Rights Worker Loses Appeal in Case Involving Minister’s Wife

The Court of Appeal has upheld the sentence of a human rights worker, who was fined by the Kompong Chhnang Pro­vincial Court last January for defaming a company owned by Chea Kheng, the wife of Minister of Industry Suy Sem.

Presiding Judge Pak Chan­sambor said the Court of Appeal on Sept 13 not only turned down the appeal against the conviction of Sam Chankea, Kompong

Chh­nang provincial coordinator for rights group Adhoc, but also increased his court fine from $250 to $500 and the compensation he has to pay to Ms. Kheng from $750 to $1,000.

Mr. Chankea was fined in January of last year after Ms. Kheng, the owner of KDC Inter­national company, filed a criminal lawsuit complaint against him because he had told Radio Free Asia that KDC was grabbing 145 hectares of land belonging to 64 families in the province’s Kom­pong Tralach district.

Mr. Chankea said that the court had left him in the dark about his appeal hearing date and that he had only heard about the new, harsher verdict yesterday.

“I just heard that the Appeal Court heard my case in absentia when the judiciary police delivered my verdict,” he said, adding that he believed the court had deliberately failed to inform him about his hearing.

“The Appeal Court had the

ill intention to try my case in the absence of me and my lawyer,” he said, adding that he planned

to file a complaint over misconduct by Court of Appeal judges at the Supreme Council of the Magistracy.

Judge Chansambor claimed the court was not to blame for its lack of communication toward Mr. Chankea, and he maintained that it had sent a letter about

the appeal hearing, though

he also admitted that the summons to the court may not have been delivered to the rights

“There must have been a problem with the delivery” of the letter, Judge Chansambor said.

In a related event, the Kom­pong Chhnang Provincial Court yesterday questioned five villagers involved in the KDC land dispute, said Chan Soveth, dep­uty head of Adhoc’s human rights monitoring program.

The five are part of a group of 22 families who filed a complaint against KDC late last year over allegations of land grabbing.

Rights groups have long complained that Cambodia’s justice system is biased toward powerful business people with links to the ruling CPP, who use the court

as a tool to intimidate villagers and rights workers who protest against the injustice of land grabbing by the powerful.