A police official from Takeo province was arrested in Vietnam on Saturday night after fatally shooting one man and injuring a second at a restaurant just across the border, officials said on Sunday.
Lay Bunthy, 53, a deputy police chief at the Phnom Den International Checkpoint, shot two Vietnamese men in Vietnam at about 8:30 p.m., said Sem Socheat, chief of the Takeo police force’s serious crimes bureau.
“I was informed by our local police that he shot a Vietnamese person twice—once in the middle of the forehead and once through the ribs—and that he died at the scene, and that another victim was sent to a hospital, but I don’t know the details of his injuries,” he said.
The bureau chief said Mr. Bunthy and his victims were not sitting together at the restaurant across the border from Borei Cholsar district and that he did not know what led to the shooting. He said Mr. Bunthy was arrested in Vietnam at 5 a.m. on Sunday.
The checkpoint’s police chief, Sok Samnang, could not be reached for comment.
Sok Phal, director of the Interior Ministry’s immigration department, said the case involved a “personal dispute” but declined to elaborate.
Sarin Sarano, a department official responsible for Cambodia’s border checkpoints with Vietnam, said he had no further details about the incident.
“The information is true, and the problem is being solved,” he said.
Officials at the Vietnamese Embassy in Phnom Penh could not be reached.
