Authorities in Battambang province have released a septuagenarian arrested for impersonating an incoming village chief on a document for a local woman to access free medical care, though they may yet open an investigation.
Tuy Chan, 70, was arrested on Monday for fraudulently signing the document on June 7 as the incoming chief of Anlong Lavea village in Sangke district’s Wat Tamim commune—which the opposition CNRP wrested from the ruling CPP in local elections earlier this month—said Chet Vanny, a deputy provincial police chief.
“He pretended to be the new village chief and he used his fake position to sign a document for a villager who needed free treatment from a hospital,” he said.
He said the complaint was filed by the current CPP village chief, Roum Neang.
Mr. Chan said the woman had approached him thinking he was the new village chief because the CNRP had initially picked him to be appointed to the post if it won the commune on June 4. But he said the party had decided to give the village to another, younger man instead.
Mr. Chan said he initially refused to sign the document, “but she begged me, so that’s why I signed it for her.”
Court prosecutor Yuth Sotheara, who conducted the questioning, said Mr. Chan was released on Tuesday and the court was still deciding whether to charge either him or the woman.
According to unofficial results, the CPP won 1,158 of the country’s 1,646 communes on June 4.
