The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Friday delayed the trial of fugitive Defense Ministry official Thong Sarath’s parents, who are facing charges of possessing illegal firearms.
Thong Chamroeun and Keo Sary were arrested and imprisoned in December after police found a cache of weapons and ammunition in their homes while investigating their son, Major General Thong Sarath, who is suspected of orchestrating the November assassination of Shimmex chairman Ung Meng Chue and remains at large.
Released on bail, the parents were rearrested in February as they attempted to flee the country in an ambulance headed for the Vietnam border.
In court Friday, Judge Khy Chhai said: “The court has decided to delay the trial at the request of the defendants and their lawyers.”
Contacted later by telephone and asked to explain the delay, Judge Chhai said “the lawyers requested the court delay the trial because they had not yet sufficiently studied the relevant documents.”
In the courtroom, Ms. Sary said that she had reduced her defense team to just Lim Vanna and Sy Sathya, and that all other lawyers previously employed by her and her husband were no longer working on the case. She gave no reason for the decision.
Vong Bunvisoth, a deputy prosecutor at the court, noted that seven lawyers were previously employed to represent the couple.
Mr. Chamroeun and Ms. Sary declined to answer questions from reporters as they left the courtroom.
The couple was originally arrested and sent to Prey Sar prison on December 7 following raids on their homes in Phnom Penh that turned up illegal firearms and ammunition including three AK-47 assault rifles and a pistol.
The raids were part of the investigation into their son, who is accused of ordering the hit on Ung Men Chue, who was shot multiple times after getting out of his SUV in front of at a fruit store in Phnom Penh.
Four of Maj. Gen. Sarath’s bodyguards remain in provisional detention—two charged with murder and two charged with being accomplices to murder.
