Police on Wednesday identified two men involved in the alleged abduction and rape of a 14-year-old girl who passed out while drinking bubble tea in the company of a young woman in Phnom Penh’s Chamkar Mon district on Tuesday.
The woman, 21-year-old Tey Ya, who lives in the same neighborhood as the victim, invited the teenager to a water-blessing ceremony at Stung Meanchey pagoda on Tuesday afternoon, then took her to drink bubble tea at a cafe across the street from the Khmer-Soviet Friendship Hospital, according to the girl’s mother and a family friend.
Sem Sovann, 46, the victim’s mother, and Yanh Sopheap, 34, a close friend of the victim’s family, said the girl passed out after drinking the tea and was accosted by two men and taken to the Sok San Guesthouse in Tuol Kok district, where they say she was raped.
“My daughter told me that she was raped and when she woke up, she was badly hurt,” Ms. Sovann said.
The victim’s mother said that after she filed a complaint with police Tuesday evening, representatives of the Child Protection Unit, a police unit supported by the Cambodian Children’s Fund, helped take her daughter to be examined at the Phnom Penh Referral Hospital on Wednesday morning.
Phorn Aun, police chief in Chamkar Mon’s Tumnop Toek commune, confirmed that he had received a complaint from Ms. Sovann on Wednesday.
“Now we are investigating the case. We know the identity of the suspects already,” Mr. Aun said. “We believe that there are two men involved in this case, but that there was only one suspect who committed the crime.”
Mr. Sopheap, the friend, said he suspected that Ms. Ya colluded with the two men by drugging the teenager’s bubble tea.
“I and some other people detained Tey Ya and sent her to the Tumnop Toek commune police station for questioning,” he said.
“Tey Ya said she did not lure in the girl to sell her, and that the suspects threatened to kill her” if she didn’t hand over the victim, he added.
