The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a Phnom Penh Municipal Court decision to reinvestigate opposition Senator Hong Sok Hour’s forgery case and to keep him jailed in the interim.
Mr. Sok Hour was jailed in August on the prime minister’s orders after an online video showed him presenting a forged diplomatic treaty with Vietnam during a lecture.
His lawyers said in court that he found the document through a Google search, leading judges to order his computer seized and the case reinvestigated, and to keep him jailed to prevent more crimes.
The decision was upheld by the Appeal Court in November and went before the Supreme Court on Wednesday.
“The court thinks the Appeal Court’s decision to uphold the municipal court’s detention order was correct because the defendant Hong Sok Hour was under monitoring for forging documents, as the crime of forging documents causes serious trouble for society,” Judge Soeng Panhavuth said.
Outside the courtroom, Mr. Sok Hour said he expected the decision.
“I am not surprised,” he said. “It’s a political issue, so we knew already.”
