The owner of the site in Svay Rieng province where a helicopter crashed Sunday killing National Police Commissioner Hok Lundy and three others, claimed he had been approached Thursday by a provincial government official wanting to buy the land.
Koeut Sophy, 35, a monk at Wat Chey Thmey pagoda, said by telephone that a senior provincial land management official had contacted him Thursday about buying the 70-by-80 meters of land in Rumduol district’s Kompong Chak commune.
“A land management official came to talk about buying the land and asked me how much I sell,” he said, adding that he told the official, whose name he couldn’t recall, that he would sell the land for $150,000.
Koeut Sophy added, however, that he would only sell the land to Hok Lundy’s family, in part because his father also served as a police officer in Svay Rieng province during the Lon Nol regime of the early 1970s.
Svay Rieng Provincial Governor Chieng Am said Thursday that he was unaware of any offer to buy the land and added that Hok Lundy’s family was still mourning his death.
“They are all crying,” Chieng Am said of the family members.
Chieng Am said that Hok Lundy’s body would be transported Saturday and buried at his birthplace in Chantrea district’s Bavet commune near the border with Vietnam.
On Street 178 in Phnom Penh on Thursday, workers were seen decorating a truck to transport the body to Svay Rieng province under the guard of 10 police officers.
Kompong Chak deputy commune chief Pen Sam An said Thursday by telephone that police were still guarding the crash site and that debris from the helicopter remained untouched.
