No Fake License Plates Found At Military Police Headquarters

The first two days of a new crackdown on the improper use of military license plates have focused on vehicles parked at the National Military Police Headquarters in Phnom Penh, a spokesman said Tuesday.

National Military Police spokesman Eng Hy explained that 10 military police officers had been assigned to check all cars driving into the headquarters in Dangkao district to make sure that their blue-and-red Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) license plates were genuine.

“We posted a working group at the entrance of the military police headquarters and stopped officials using vehicles and motorbikes bearing military license plates…but we have not found anyone using fake military license plates,” he said Tuesday.

Tuesday Mr. Hy was still waiting to hear back from the results of similar inspections happening at provincial military police headquarters throughout the country.

“We gave orders to all commanders of provincial military police to check for fake military license plates in their units, but up to now, I have not yet received information from them,” he said.

The officers also looked at all cars entering the military police compound to see if they had tinted windows—which were ordered off the roads in 1997 by Prime Minister Hun Sen, although the ban is rarely enforced—but failed to discover any lawbreakers, Mr. Hy said.

However, he said that his team had “educated” some officials who arrived at the military police headquarters riding motorcycles without a helmet, which is illegal.

On Sunday Mr. Hy said that military police would begin to inspect vehicles across Phnom Penh on Monday to look for fake or improperly used RCAF plates. Technically, members of the military are not supposed to use military plates on their personal vehicles, although the practice is widespread.

But as of Tuesday, these checks had not yet begun.

“We have not yet started to check and inspect the vehicles on the road because we have not yet received orders from the upper level,” Mr. Hy explained.

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