The mastermind of a grenade attack and two failed assassinations of her boyfriend had one of two convictions against her overturned and the other sent back to the Appeal Court.
Sok Kimly, 45, was previously found guilty of two attempts on her boyfriend’s life in 2015 and 2016. But on Tuesday, the Supreme Court overturned her conviction in the first failed assassination, involving a gun, and sent her second case — a grenade attack in central Phnom Penh — for retrial at the Appeal Court.
Seven accomplices have been found guilty in those two cases, but Kimly was the only one to take her appeal to the Supreme Court. The Appeal Court previously downgraded jail sentences for Kimly and two others from life to 30 years.
The grenade attack, in Boeng Keng Kang in September 2016, injured four bystanders and damaged three vehicles.
Presiding Judge Nil Nonn said on Tuesday that the Supreme Court had accepted parts of Kimly’s appeal from November 2020 in the grenade case, and would send the case back to the Appeal Court.
For the 2015 case, involving a gun that wasn’t fired, Nonn overturned Kimly’s conviction.
During her Supreme Court hearing on October 12, Kimly said she had only wanted her boyfriend threatened, and had not asked for an assassination.
“I did not want to kill him. I felt jealous because I loved him so much and I asked [accomplice] Pheakdey to threaten him. I did not want him to go out at night too often,” she said during that hearing.
Defense lawyer Yon Bunna welcomed the decision and even though he hadn’t seen the judges’ reasoning he believed it was properly adjudicated.
“Our request sought this to benefit the client. We requested that,” he said.
Kimly’s accomplices in the grenade case are Bun Pheakdey, his girlfriend Bou Sopheap, Sak Mab and Nou Somban, all serving 30 years in jail following the Appeal Court downgrading some of their sentences.
Her accomplices in the earlier gun case are three Vietnamese nationals, all serving 10-year sentences.
