The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Thursday sentenced a 20-year-old man to seven years in prison for raping four boys in his care at a Christian anti-sex trafficking NGO last year.
Sim Sam, an untrained volunteer at Agape International Missions in Phnom Penh’s Russei Keo district, was in November left to supervise 18 boys at the NGO’s safe house overnight by its executive director, Don Brewster.
Four of those boys, between 8 and 12 years old, testified in court last month that they had been raped by Mr. Sam inside the facility for vulnerable and abandoned children.
“Sim Sam, also known as Dara, is charged with having sexual intercourse with minors under the age of 15 years…and sentenced to seven years in prison and ordered to pay 4 million riel [about $1,000] to the plaintiff, Don Brewster,” Judge Chhe Virak announced Thursday.
Mr. Sam was arrested in April and went on trial behind closed doors on September 16.
According to Lim Chanlida, a lawyer for Agape and the four boys, Mr. Sam confessed to raping one of the boys but denied raping the other three.
Mr. Brewster, who founded the anti-sex trafficking NGO in 2005 in the Svay Pak commune—notorious for having once been an enclave of underage prostitution—admitted last month that he “failed” the boys in his care when he relaxed his previously strict screening process for volunteers and gave Mr. Sam access to his victims.
Mr. Brewster could not be reached Thursday.
On the subject of the $1,000 compensation ordered by Judge Virak, Ms. Chanlida, the lawyer, said Mr. Brewster “has to give the money to the kids.”
In a separate case, Philippe Broaly, the 48-year-old French director of Enfant du Cambodge, an anti-sex trafficking NGO based in Sihanoukville, was sent to the Preah Sihanouk Provincial Court, where he will be charged with sexually abusing multiple boys in his care, a court official said.
Mr. Broaly was arrested Tuesday for allegedly molesting seven boys, one of whom is under the age of 15, deputy prosecutor Ros Saram said.
“I will charge him with indecent acts against a minor under the age of 15, and I will charge him tomorrow,” he said. “I cannot charge him today because he was sent here at about 3 p.m., and I have to check his documents thoroughly before I charge because he is a foreigner.”
Under Article 42 of the Criminal Code, sex with a minor is punishable by five to 10 years in prison.
