The driver of a Range Rover killed three people and seriously injured three others on Saturday evening when he lost control of his vehicle shortly after leaving a drinking party in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district, police and a relative of two of the victims said.
Police said the driver, whose name they would not reveal, but who is believed to be the son of a government official in Phnom Penh, had been drinking before he first hit and killed an unnamed pedestrian before veering into a motorcycle and killing a 42-year-old woman and her 18-year-old daughter.
Municipal traffic police chief Heng Chankiri said that a suspect in the crash deaths had been sent to court, but he would not say whether he had been charged, or what he would be charged with. “He caused a traffic accident, killing three people and putting another three people in critical condition,” he said.
According to Mr. Chankiri, who declined to name the suspect, a breathalyzer test found that the driver was below the legal limit to drink and drive.
Mr. Chankiri said that he thought the driver was trying to avoid pedestrians when the accident occurred.
“Perhaps he tried to miss the pedestrian [who he killed] walking across the road, and then drove off the road hitting the other people,” the police chief speculated.
Keo Chanthy, 47, whose wife and daughter were killed in the smash, identified the driver as Bun Rothanak, 32, the son of a Phnom Penh municipal official.
“The owner of this car just left a drinking party,” Mr. Chanthy said, adding that his wife and daughter had just left their place of work and were traveling home when they were killed.
“I don’t know what to say…they are both dead.”
