A father-and-son duo faced a retrial Thursday at the Appeal Court for charges of premeditated murder of their neighbor after their prosecutor in a lower court sought harsher punishments against the pair.
Courts in Phnom Penh and Ratanakiri had a flurry of cases and appeal hearings this week, some of which were delayed without reason. Here is a roundup of five cases from Wednesday and Thursday this week.
A Cambodian man says he was not involved in drug production — a charge for which he was convicted in 2017 — and wants the Supreme Court to overturn his conviction based on testimony from a co-accused who said he was not part of the operations.
A Chinese national serving a seven-year sentence for organizing illegal surrogacy argued on Monday that he was just staying at a friend’s house and didn’t know why there were dozens of pregnant women there.
A 16-year-old son of a jailed CNRP official was denied bail by the Appeal Court following his arrest in June for incitement and insulting public officials over his digital activities.
At least 26 defendants told the Appeal Court over two years that they faced violence or torture by authorities to force confessions, according to a trial monitoring report by the Cambodian Center for Human Rights.
A jailed Mother Nature environmentalist and Khmer Thavrak activist appeared at the Appeal Court on Tuesday, where a judge denied requests to drop their cases or grant bail, while three female activists from the groups were unable to attend due to flooding in their prison.
The Appeal Court on Wednesday upheld a lower court decision to arrest and jail unionist Rong Chhun over his claims that Cambodia had ceded land to Vietnam, denying him release on bail as his supporters continued to rally outside the court.
The Cambodian Center for Human Rights has called on judges to “inform and fully explain” to all defendants both their rights during trial and the charges against them, citing a 16-month review of proceedings at the Phnom Penh Appeal Court.
The Appeal Court has upheld a lower court’s decision to accept new evidence from the prosecution in Kem Sokha’s stalled treason trial, although a lawyer for the opposition leader on Thursday expressed doubt that the evidence would incriminate him.
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