A 27-year-old security guard accused of pulling a 6-year-old girl into the bathroom of a Phnom Penh restaurant and raping her before going to work was to appear in the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Saturday, police officials said.
Neighbors saw Chem Veayou inappropriately touching the girl and behaving strangely on Wednesday morning and alerted her mother, who called police, said Neang Samoeun, the police chief of Boeng Trabek commune.
The girl had been playing with other neighborhood children about 10 meters from where her mother was selling sugarcane juice when Mr. Veayou approached her, Mr. Samoeun said.
When officers went to the house that the suspect was guarding later on Wednesday, he ran to the third floor and locked himself in a room, the police chief said.
After a couple of hours, the suspect unlocked the door and was arrested, he said.
Mr. Veayou later confessed to raping the girl, said Heang Thareth, a deputy police chief for Chamkar Mon district.
“In our report to the court, we accuse him of raping a minor,” Mr. Thareth said.
