Singer’s Recovery May Aid Police Investigation

Touch Srey Nich, the popular karaoke singer shot in broad daylight a year ago, is slowly making progress at a hospital in Thailand, possibly opening the door for further investigation of the case.

In an interview broadcast Thurs­day on Radio Free Asia, Touch Srey Nich said she was feeling bet­ter but remains paralyzed from gunshot wounds she suffered to her head and neck.

“I am fine, but I am not happy be­cause I cannot move my body yet,” she said in the interview.

The 25-year-old singer, who grew famous with her work’s traditional themes and modest Khmer dress, said she still is un­able to sing.

Her recovery could mark a turn­ing point in a police investigation that thus far has turned up nothing, and which many ob­serv­ers have criticized as insincere.

The attack on Touch Srey Nich, in which her mother was fatally wounded, was one in a string of high-profile killings that have mostly gone unsolved.

Municipal Deputy police Chief Reach Sokhon said Sunday he was encouraged by Touch Srey Nich’s progress and that he will appeal to National Police Di­rec­tor General Hok Lundy for permission to travel to Thailand and in­terview her. He added, however, that there is no guarantee she will cooperate with an investigation.

Touch Srey Nich’s fans and friends celebrated news of her gradual recovery, but said they were frustrated by authorities’ in­dolence.

“If the authorities wanted to find her attackers, they would have found them,” said Tep Rindaro, a local film star.

Witnesses said two men on a motorbike shot Touch Srey Nich and her mother Kim Sinoun, 59, on Oct 21, 2003, as they left a flow­er shop on Monireth Bou­le­vard near Mao Tse-tung Boulevard.

 

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