Police in the capital arrested an SRP commune councilor Wednesday evening for alleged illegal possession of an old, unspecified model of machine gun, police said.
Police detained Im Kim Hong, a councilor for Dangkao district’s Trapaing Krasaing commune, after searching his home and discovering the unloaded gun, which Mr Kim Hong claimed to have retrieved from a nearby pond last year, said Chuop Sok Heng, deputy district police chief.
“We arrested him because he possessed an unlicensed gun,” Mr Sok Heng said, adding that Mr Kim Hong is to be sent to Phnom Penh Municipal Court today.
Ros Vanna, chief of Trapaing Krasaing commune, said Mr Kim Hong found the rifle last year while fishing near his residence in the commune’s Samakki Bei village. He said police found the gun wrapped in a sack in the commune councilor’s home.
“I don’t know why he kept that old gun,” Mr Vanna said, adding that Mr Kim Hong became a commune councilor earlier this year.
Yim Sovann, spokesman for the SRP, said police should not have detained Mr Kim Hong because the gun amounted to little more than scrap metal.
“In fact it is not a gun, it is scrap metal, because it has no magazine and butt,” he said, adding that authorities discriminated against SRP members.
“Now, I am following this case very closely,” Mr Sovann said.
