An anti-drug police officer was slashed with a samurai-style sword on Wednesday evening while arresting two men believed to have been heading a methamphetamine distribution ring in Kompong Chhnang City, officials said Thursday.
Provincial anti-drug police chief Pov Siphan said Tep Sarath needed five stitches in his hand after he was attacked with katanas by the suspected ringleaders inside their rented house in the city’s Kompong Chhnang commune. Police raided the house after arresting eight other suspected drug dealers earlier in the day, he said.
Mr. Siphan named the attackers as Im Sokdy, 30, and Duy Kimsoeun, 27. “The ringleaders in Kompong Chhnang City slashed our…officer who went there to help,” he said.
One of them, he added, “cut his hand down to the bone and needed five stitches.” Deputy provincial police chief Chun Tharith said Thursday’s arrests took place over a five-hour period and followed a monthlong investigation into drug distribution in the provincial capital.
The operation, however, turned up just 3 grams of crystal methamphetamine, he said.
