Washington, D.C – General Hing Bun Heang, commander of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s bodyguard unit, was the first Cambodian to be sanctioned under the Magnitsky Act along with other alleged human rights abusers from around the world.
The Magnitsky Act was created in 2012 to target Russian officials who were responsible for the death of accountant Sergei Magnitsky, who died in a Russian prison in 2009 after he exposed the corruption in the Russian government. In 2017, the law was expanded to the “Global Magnitsky Act.
“It’s become one of the most important tools we have to fight human rights violations around the world,” Sen. Ben Cardin, who co-authored the law with the late Sen. John McCain, told a forum at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington in mid-December.
