Foreign Minister Hor Namhong said Wednesday his April 22 defamation lawsuit against SRP leader Sam Rainsy should be allowed to work its way through the courts.
“I will let the court work on the case,” he said. “I think [Sam Rainsy] defamed me. He has disseminated [misinformation] about me again and again. It is his intent.”
A Foreign Ministry official said after the complaint was filed at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court that Hor Namhong was seeking $2,500 in damages, over comments Sam Rainsy made April 17 allegedly accusing the ministers of finance and foreign affairs of involvement in the Khmer Rouge.
Hor Namhong told reporters at the Foreign Affairs Ministry on Wednesday that he had new information from an unnamed suspect currently detained at the Khmer Rouge tribunal that the regime’s leadership had planned to execute him before it fell.
“I have clear information from a Khmer Rouge leader who is being detained. He clarified that I was a prisoner and I would have been taken to S-21,” Hor Namhong said.
Sam Rainsy said Wednesday that only the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia could decide the matter and declined to say whether he would appear for questioning at the municipal court May 22 as summoned.
