Jailed Australian surrogacy broker Tammy Davis-Charles’ son, who flew to Cambodia late last year in an effort to free his mother, is set to be deported after being arrested in a bizarre incident in Phnom Penh last week, officials said on Monday.
Dylan Charles, 26, was arrested while walking shirtless along Street 360 in Chamkar Mon district and attempting to throw paving stones at passing vehicles at about 7 a.m. on Wednesday, said Boeng Keng Kang I commune police chief Kul Sophat.
“He lost his mind. He tried to throw rocks at people’s cars,” Mr. Sophat said on Monday.
“We immediately sent him to the immigration office for questioning, because we didn’t have anyone who could” question him in English, he said.
Mr. Sophat said he could not confirm local media reports saying that Mr. Charles was intoxicated at the time of his arrest.
Ms. Davis-Charles, 49, was arrested in November just weeks after the government placed a ban on commercial surrogate pregnancies in the country.
The director of Fertility Solutions PGD, she was charged along with two Cambodian associates with fraudulently requesting documents and acting as an intermediary between adoptive parents and a pregnant woman, and was sent to jail to await trial.
Mr. Charles has said that his mother was an innocent victim in a government setup. He has also said Cambodian surrogate mothers contracted through his mother’s company continued to be paid and taken care of despite the crackdown.
A Hang Meas television news bulletin broadcast last week shows footage of Mr. Charles handcuffed and being questioned by immigration officials. He appears disoriented and covered in dirt, with bloody wounds on his left knee and foot—wounds that are also visible in a video posted to Facebook on January 14.
In the video, Mr. Charles shows off the injuries, as well as abrasions on his hands and legs. “Happened when my passport n cash/ cards stolen,” he wrote in a comment alongside the clip.
Uk Heisela, chief of investigations at the Interior Ministry’s immigration department, said Mr. Charles had been unwilling to cooperate with officials after his arrest, delaying efforts to seek consular assistance. Mr. Charles was visited on Monday by Australian Embassy officials, who escorted him to a private hospital where he refused treatment for his injuries before trying to escape, he added.
Mr. Heisela said Mr. Charles was being detained at the immigration department while awaiting deportation for destroying private property and traveling without a passport.
“The embassy is contacting his family to buy his plane ticket,” he said.
(Additional reporting by Sonia Kohlbacher)
