The sister of Piseth Peaklica says it is Prime Minister Hun Sen’s duty to tell truth about his relationship with the slain actress because it would help provide justice.
Speaking in an interview broadcast on Radio Free Asia Tuesday from Europe, Sao Peana finished a three-day series in which she repeated assertions first published in a French magazine last week—that Hun Sen had an affair with Piseth Peaklica and his jealous wife was behind her murder.
She also gave details of alleged events prior to the dramatic daylight hit in July that claimed the life of Piseth Peaklica, the nation’s best-known traditional dancer.
But government officials continued to dispute the allegations this week and accused the opposition of an elaborate scheme to defame the prime minister.
The charges were first published in L’Express. The magazine quoted from Piseth Peaklica’s private diary, interviewed her sister and niece, and claimed to have a love poem written by Hun Sen.
‘‘I am appealing for justice,’’ Sao Peana told Radio Free Asia. ‘‘As a powerful person [Hun Sen] stopped relations with my sister and let her live. That was good. But he ignored what his wife has done….It is Mr Hun Sen who should untie this story so that it can reach its end.’’
Sao Peana claims Hun Sen acquired her sister’s phone number from National Police Chief Hok Lundy. She says Piseth Peaklica met with Hun Sen privately at least six times, picked up at least twice by senior adviser Kun Kim.
Hok Lundy, she added, warned her sister on May 10 that she should leave the country to escape assassins hired by Bun Rany. After conferring, the sisters decided that allowing him to help them might make his wife also believe Peaklica was having an affair with him, and they concluded it would be easier to kill them in secret outside the country, Sao Peana said.
The new allegations come two months after Sao Peana held a press conference in Phnom Penh and said rumors that government officials were involved in the slaying were untrue. Weeks earlier, however, the family claimed one member was inexplicably beaten at a road block by military police.
Reached by phone Monday and asked if Sao Peana’s charges were true, Kun Kim responded “I don’t know….I don’t know.” He then laughed and hung up the telephone. Hok Lundy last week denied he had ever met Piseth Peaklica. Monday he declined to comment on the new allegations.
Om Yentieng, a close adviser to the Prime Minister, called the story “completely not true.”
“Everything has been engineered by Mr Sam Rainsy to defame Samdech Hun Sen,’’ he said. “I cannot even count the number of statements Sam Rainsy has made that defame Hun Sen and the government.”
A Sam Rainsy Party spokesman denied his party was behind Sao Peana’s allegations.
