After more than two years of anticipation and legal wrangling, Siem Reap provincial court on Friday acquitted a Swiss national who had been accused of sexually abusing young boys.
Rudolf Knuchel, 55, was arrested on the evening of Jan 26, 2000, when police raided his Siem Reap restaurant and business center and found him partially naked with youths aged 14 and 18. During the subsequent investigation, six other Siem Reap youths claimed to have had sexual relations with Knuchel.
“We did not have enough evidence to convict him,” Siem Reap Court Judge Plang Chhlam said. The 18-year-old man Knuchel was found with was not underage and the sex they had was consensual, he said.
And there was not enough evidence to prove that Knuchel sexually abused the 14-year-old boy.
“We have laws, so before we sentence someone, we must have enough [evidence],” Plang Chhlam said.
Knuchel’s lawyer, Dy Borima, discounted the evidence presented to the court by prosecutors, including drugs seized from Knuchel’s home. He said Knuchel’s various medicines were for legitimate ailments—Knuchel was released from confinement in March 2000 after an apparent heart attack—and were not mind-altering drugs or aphrodisiacs.
Authorities had also seized Knuchel’s computer, but no debaucherous images were found on the computer, according to Dy Borima.
Dy Borima also said the sex between Knuchel and the 18-year-old was by mutual consent. He denied any sexual contact between Knuchel and the 14-year-old.
Knuchel’s lawyer suggested that the charges were brought against Knuchel “because he helped a lot of children living in poor families to get educations. But some of those children avoided school.”
Knuchel got angry with those children, so they accused him of debauchery to get back at him, Dy Borima said.
Indeed, a July 17, 2000, statement from Knuchel includes assertions that his arrest was engineered by 18 people, including journalists and children’s rights workers, in a scheme to usurp the attractive locations occupied by Knuchel’s Siem Reap businesses.
Singly Bou, a case worker for the Cambodian Women’s Crisis Center called the ruling an “injustice.” “The court had enough evidence, but they didn’t charge the offender—and the trial was not open to reporters,” she said.
A trial was to be held in January 2001, but it was delayed after Srei Sary, the lawyer for the eight youths, appealed the court’s decision to drop charges against Knuchel of rape and operating a place of debauchery, charging him only with debauchery instead.
Plang Chhlam said Cambodian courts routinely charge sex suspects with debauchery because it does not require police to catch the suspect engaging in debaucherous acts.
(Additional reporting by David Shaftel)
