French investigators probing the 2012 murder of French national Laurent Vallier and his four children have returned to Cambodia to interview three suspects, a police official said on Wednesday.
“The French investigating judge is on a mission cooperating with our penal police department for 10 days to question three suspects, including two women,” said Major General Sok Khemarin, who heads the department.
French Embassy spokesman Nicolas Baudouin said the same judge visited Cambodia to pursue the murder case about two years ago and that she returned on Monday with a team of investigators, but declined to elaborate on their work.
When the bodies of Laurent Vallier, 42, and his children were found inside a Land Cruiser submerged in a pond near their home in Kompong Speu province three months after they disappeared, Cambodian police immediately ruled the case a murder-suicide—despite the fact that the Frenchman’s head was found inside a suitcase in the back of the vehicle.
Laurent Vallier’s relatives in France suggested foul play, pointing to a land dispute with his Cambodian in-laws, and the case was reopened after French investigators conducted a forensic examination and ruled out suicide.
