A 25-year-old taxi driver arrested on Saturday for attempting to rape a British tourist he had been driving to Kratie province was on Tuesday charged and sent to prison to await trial, an official said.
According to police, Nim Bunthan picked up the 24-year-old woman in Tbong Khmum province’s Suong City on Saturday afternoon and attempted to rape her in a forested area off National Road 7 in Kratie’s Chet Borei district after all of the other passengers had disembarked the van.
After Mr. Bunthan ripped off the woman’s clothes, she begged him not to rape her and promised to pay him cash if he took her to an ATM, police said.
But when they arrived in Kratie City, the woman escaped and police arrested Mr. Bunthan.
On Tuesday, the Kratie Provincial Court charged the taxi driver with attempted rape, said Huot Lim Heang, chief of the provincial police’s serious crimes bureau.
“We sent him to pretrial detention at the provincial prison at 4 p.m. this afternoon,” he added.
