The lawyer for Duong Udomchorvin, who slapped the son of logging tycoon Try Pheap in a Phnom Penh tattoo parlor in April, told a hearing at the municipal court Thursday that his obese client’s poor health should be taken into account in sentencing.
Mr. Udomchorvin, 27, the son of high-profile developer and Interior Ministry official Duong Ngieb, slapped Try Daluch, 21, and threatened to shoot him at the RSD tattoo parlor after Mr. Daluch asked whether he could charge his phone near him.
The defendant did not appear in court Thursday but his lawyer, Nach Try, said he pled guilty, and read his written testimony.
“I did not threaten that young brother, I just gesticulated my hands and lightly touched the young brother and there was only a small scuffle,” it said.
Mr. Try then told the court that the strike by Mr. Udomchorvin was “only a scratch and not a punch.”
The lawyer said the incident occurred because his client was already angry after other customers had laughed at him when he walked awkwardly into the shop.
“The scuffle happened when my client walked in. He is fat and has a big body and walked in a disorderly way, and everyone laughed and thought he was a gangster,” he said. “He has a lot of fat inside his body, which makes him get angry easily.”
Mr. Try asked the court to consider his client’s health condition, noting that the 27-year-old suffers cirrhosis of the liver, stomachaches and high blood pressure.
“Please consider [only handing down] a minimum sentence, and suspend the rest,” he said to the judge.
Yet the victim’s lawyer, Ket Chan Manin, asked that the judge reject Mr. Udomchorvin’s entreaties and punish him.
“Duong Udomchorvin has committed similar cases in the past, so if there is a request to take into account mitigating circumstances, I ask the court to consider the facts that have happened previously for this hearing,” he said.
A verdict is set to be handed down on August 11.
