A 15-year-old boy was sentenced to 16 years in prison and fined $750 for raping three young women, while six accomplices were sentenced in absentia to 20 years each and fined a total of $2,250 in Kompong Chhnang Provincial Court last week, officials said Sunday.
The court handed down the sentences Tuesday after Tep Teng confessed to participating in the gang rape and beating of two girls, aged 14, and a 21-year-old woman in Banteay Meas village, in Kompong Tralach district’s Taches commune on May 13, Ing Sarun, Kompong Chhnang provincial court director, said.
The young women were returning home around midnight after a relative’s engagement ceremony when Tep Teng and six accomplices, aged 16 to 20, blocked the road and assaulted them, Ing Sarun said.
“The victims were beaten severely with chains from motorbikes and iron bars and hit by the criminals’ knees to weaken them in order to rape them,” Ing Sarun said.
Tep Teng’s fine will go to one 14-year-old victim, while the other young men—Orn Seth, Orn Sok, Phum Ny, Khat Sie, El Chim and Im Prunh—will collectively pay $1,000 to the other 14-year-old victim and $1,250 to the 21-year-old victim, Ing Sarun said. The fines were determined taking into account how many times each girl was raped and how violently she was beaten, he said. Tep Teng was fined the most because he initiated the violence, Ing Sarun said.
The attackers are from Tanok village, Seb commune, in the same district, said Srey Ra, Kompong Tralach district penal police chief. Tep Teng was arrested at his house on May 14, but the other six are still at large, he said.
