A lawyer representing three foreigners accused of having ties to the Southeast Asian terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah is calling for their release on the grounds that a six-month pre-trial detention period has expired.
“If they had really violated the law, the government would send them [to court] already,” said Kao Soupha, a lawyer representing two Thais and an Egyptian charged in May under the country’s anti-terror law.
Police closed two Islamic schools and arrested Thai nationals Abdul Azi Haji Chiming, 35, and Muhammad Yalaludin Mading, 41, and Egyptian Esam Muhammad Khidr Ali, 40. A fourth suspect, Cambodian Sman Esma El, 23, was arrested and similarly charged in June.
Cambodian officials say they have intelligence provided by a US government security agency and other evidence that links the suspects to Jemaah Islamiyah.
Prime Minister Hun Sen has said the arrests spoiled schemes to launder money in Cambodia to fund terrorism.
But no trial date has been set for the suspects, who have remained in detention since their arrest seven months ago. Untac law forbids holding a suspect without trial for more than six months, though it is a common practice.
A court official, who asked not to be named, said investigating Judge Oun Bunna was denied evidence from the US agency and the bank records of the Islamic schools, which were funded by the Saudi Arabia-based Om-Alqura organization.
“To this day, we have not received any new documents or evidence. We have the same thing that we had at the beginning,” the court official said. Oun Bunna complained in August that the case was based primarily on police reports and not hard evidence.
A police official, who also asked not to be named, said evidence has been withheld from the courts while the government seeks to extradite the suspects to their native countries.
“If we really wanted to try them here, we would give all the documents to the court. And there are a lot,” he said.
