As Judge Sok Setha Mony prepares to deliver verdicts today in the government’s trial of 32 alleged rebels, he does so with three human rights groups saying the trial has failed to protect the defendants’ right to a fair trial.
The Lawyers Committee for Human Rights joined Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch in condemning the trial for a range of abuses, a sign, they say, of the weakness of the nation’s judicial system.
In their statement, the Lawyers Committee said they were particularly concerned by reports that five defense lawyers were telephoned and threatened with harm in connection with the case.
“Threats made to the safety of lawyers attempting to defend their clients in this already impossible climate are another alarming sign of the fragility of the rule of law in Cambodia,” the organization’s release stated.
The committee said in their statement that they were concerned about suspects who were arrested without a warrant, the suspects’ restricted access to lawyers, the government’s failure to inform the defendants of charges against them, prolonged detentions and the denial of the suspects’ right to a public hearing in the initial stages of the trial.
The case has also been troubled by confusion over the facts of the raid: To this day, no one seems to have a grasp on the number of people who died or the identity of those killed.
Though none of the defendants are charged with murder, it would be difficult to know how many counts anyone would receive, since the body count varies from two to eight depending on who is speaking.
The confusion began early on when government investigators said that eight people were dead, then lowered the number to four a short time later, setting off a raft of conflicting reports that continue to this day.
Asked at the end of the seven-day trial for the number of people killed in the raid, Lieutenant Colonel Sin Chunghor, the chief of the investigation office at the Ministry of Interior National Police, said he forgot.
He instructed reporters to follow him to his car, where he produced a list of four fatalities. He said he could name two of the individuals, but said the other two were never identified.
He also suggested the reporters speak to the Military Police investigator because they might have found more dead, possibly adding to the body count, he said.
The Military Police investigator could not be reached for comment Thursday, but Sok Setha Mony said four people were killed in the attack.
Eyewitnesses to the aftermath of the attack also saw four bodies, but the lawyer for Richard Kiri-Kim said he is positive that only two people died in the attack.
A UN human rights worker said they were told by government officials eight people died, and that the number was then lowered sometime later to four dead. The confusion has left the rights worker with some uncertainty about the number of dead.
The UN said it had identified three bodies: civilian Men Sambo, killed by a stray bullet, Um Channy and Hor Vysamon. A fourth body was never identified.
