Police in Bavet City have arrested four Vietnamese nationals accused of fatally beating a fifth Vietnamese man whose badly bruised body was found inside a casino hotel room on Sunday, officials said on Tuesday.
Ngueng Yang Yoeng, 42, was found dead in his room at the New World Casino & Hotel in the border town in Svay Rieng province on Sunday evening, his back covered in bruises, according to Mao Phinphirum, chief of police in Bavet commune.
On the evening the body was found, Mr. Phinphirum said, police arrested four Vietnamese men staying in the room next door on suspicion of murder.
“The victim was killed by someone who beat him to death in the New World Casino & Hotel room on March 13,” he said, declining to divulge the names of the suspects or potential motives for the murder.
Mr. Phinphirum said police were initially unaware of the victim’s identity and decided to bury the corpse at the Bavet pagoda on Monday after it began to smell and decompose.
But when Vietnamese police arrived later in the day to investigate the case, Mr. Phinphirum said, they dug it up and took photographs before heading back to Vietnam.
The Vietnamese officers then returned on Tuesday with Ngueng Yang Yoeng’s family, which confirmed the man’s identity and presented identification documents to Cambodian investigators, the police chief said.
“We found out the victim’s name after we buried the dead body,” he said.
“Now we are processing paperwork to hand over to the dead victim’s relatives.”
According to Bavet City deputy police chief Kao Horn, the four suspects are being held at the city police station, where they were interrogated on Tuesday afternoon, and will be sent to provincial police headquarters for further questioning today.
The New World casino could not be reached for comment.
