Two men matching the description of those who shot and killed Funcinpec senior adviser Om Radsady on Tuesday reportedly robbed several customers in a Daun Penh district restaurant less than an hour before the shooting, witnesses said Sunday.
The earlier robbery, cited by police as an indicator that Om Radsady was shot in a robbery, was denounced by Funcinpec officials as a ploy by the killers to convince the public that the killing was not politically motivated.
Witnesses at the restaurant, a nameless establishment on Sisowath Boulevard, said Sunday that at around noon on Tuesday, two men matching the description of the Om Radsady killers parked a blue Honda AX-1 motorcycle in front of their restaurant.
Both men were wearing helmets, witnesses said. The suspect who dismounted the motorcycle and approached a table outside the restaurant was wearing a blue checkered shirt, said Ouk Seng, the owner of the small storefront noodle shop.
“He was very well-built,” she said.
Ouk Seng said the suspect in the blue shirt pulled out a pistol with his right hand and aimed it at three women sitting at a table in the restaurant. The robber then grabbed two cell phones and a purse from the women with his left hand, she said.
Rather than run to the motorcycle, however, the man walked casually back to the bike and, after mounting the motorcycle, drove south on Sisowath, Ouk Seng, said.
“No one was hurt because no one shouted,” Ouk Seng said. “This is true—no one told me to say this.”
The color of the gunman’s shirt and the model of the motorcycle—as well as the method of robbery—closely match initial descriptions of the killers of Om Radsady.
Om Radsady, a senior adviser to Funcinpec President Prince Norodom Ranariddh, was reportedly shot in the back on Tuesday after exiting the Phsar Kabko Restaurant in Chamkar Mon district.
The assailant, who, witnesses say, ran back to Om Radsady after shooting him to grab the adviser’s hand phone, fled the scene with another man on an AX-1 motorcycle.
Another waitress, who identified herself only as Heang, also confirmed on Sunday that customers at the restaurant had been robbed by two men. Although she did not clearly see the driver of the motorcycle, she said the gunman was wearing a blue checkered shirt and that the two drove away on an AX-1 motorcycle.
“We cannot conclude that [the Om Radsady killing] was a robbery, but we have been told by witnesses that the robbers took his phone,” said Khieu Sopheak, spokesman for the Ministry of Interior, on Sunday.
Robbers had been stealing phones in the area for at least a week, he said, adding that unidentified suspects had stolen phones from customers at the same restaurant where Om Radsady was shot on Feb 12.
Khieu Sopheak discounted claims that the robberies were set up by the alleged assassins to create a false motive for the Om Radsady killing.
“Some people can say that, but the Ministry of Interior does not believe that theory,” he said.
Funcinpec officials, however, insisted on Sunday that Om Radsady was not killed in a robbery attempt.
The previous robberies were created to make the Om Radsady killing look like a non-politically motivated killing, Funcinpec lawmaker Keo Remy said Sunday.
“The men who shot Om Radsady ran away after he was shot, then almost immediately ran back to [Om Radsady] to take his phone; if they really wanted his phone they would have taken it when they shot him, not as an afterthought,” Keo Remy said. “If he was killed for his phone, the [assailants] would have tried to get a better phone.”
Funcinpec lawmaker Dien Del, who heads the National Assembly’s committee overseeing the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Interior, also discounted the robbery motive, saying, “Om Radsady was robbed in a group. Why didn’t [the suspects] take all their phones?”
