The Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) on Tuesday detained the police chief of Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district, as well as two subordinates, for questioning over a case that remained shrouded in secrecy.
A senior ACU official, who declined to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the media, said Meanchey police chief Hy Narin was arrested and is still being questioned by the government’s anti-graft body.
“He was arrested yesterday and is being questioned,” the official said, adding that two other district police officers—whose names he said he did not know—were also questioned.
The official declined to discuss the case further and referred questions to ACU chairman Om Yentieng, who could not be reached.
ACU spokesman Keo Remy declined to comment.
Mom Vey, deputy Meanchey police chief, confirmed that the ACU detained his superior—and said he wasn’t surprised.
“[We] are not surprised, because we’re talking about the work of top officials,” Mr. Vey said. “This is normal, because bosses are not 100 percent perfect.”
Mr. Vey said Mr. Narin has been district police chief for seven or eight years, and declined to say more.
In 2004, when Mr. Narin was deputy police chief of Chamkar Mon district, a lawyer, Pheng Sideth, was chased into his police station by a group of gangsters. Mr. Sideth said police allowed the thugs inside, and that Mr. Narin watched as they beat him. Mr. Narin denied the claim.
Hiek Chanleang, the deputy governor of Meanchey district, said Wednesday that he knew his police chief was detained by the ACU, but nothing more.
Ben Soveasna, the district’s deputy chief of the order section for the district, who was questioned by the ACU alongside Mr. Narin, said he was not arrested, but merely summoned.
“[The ACU] asked me about traffic issues and procedures,” he said.
“I went back [home] Tuesday evening. I don’t know what he [Mr. Narin] was questioned about because it [the questioning] was done in individual rooms.”
Correction: A previous version of this story mistakenly identified Ben Soveasna as a deputy district police chief.
