A 24-year-old man was killed in a gang-related attack outside a nightclub in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district early Monday morning, according to a local police official.
Kang Socheat had been drinking and playing cards outside the City nightclub in Stung Meanchey commune at about 3:30 a.m. when he was set upon by a group of five or six men, slashed twice with a sword, then fatally shot in the head, commune police chief Mao Saroeun said.
He said police believed the victim and the suspects were members of rival gangs.
“We think that this was an old revenge case. Police are investigating it to arrest the murderers and take them to court,” Mr. Saroeun said, adding that the suspects fled on motorbikes after the attack.
According to Kang Socheat’s mother, Sar Vanny, her son was released from prison three months ago after serving a one-year sentence for robbery.
“He usually stayed at home, but his friends invited him to go and drink [last night]. He never has problems with the other young men in the village, so I don’t understand why these gangsters killed him,” Ms. Vanny told a reporter during her son’s funeral Monday.
