The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a Takeo Provincial Court decision allowing a couple to remain free but under court supervision after being charged as accomplices to an acid attack carried out by their adult children.
In November 2014, Muong Sreymom, then 31, was feeding her 2-year-old daughter near her cosmetics stall at Tonlab market in Kiri Vong district when siblings and competing vendors Deng Leakhena and Deng Meas attacked them with acid.
The siblings remain at large, but their parents, Nhem Deng and Seng Kimleng, were charged as accomplices to the crime.
Presiding Judge Kem Sathavy Wednesday defended the decision not to arrest the parents, citing Article 226 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which gives judges discretion to place charged suspects under supervision.
“It was the perpetrators who initiated the conspiracy,” he said. However, the victim’s father, Luch Thoeun, said he wanted to see the couple jailed.
“I hope authorities or court officials arrest them soon,” he said.
“The fact that their father grabbed his family members into the car to escape shows they must have initiated the attack.”
