Amid denials of links to various politicians and opposition figures, one activist on trial at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Tuesday for incitement spoke of receiving a $1,000 donation for office rent from a Cambodian-Australian MP who is also a defendant in the case.
Another ex-CNRP official, this time from Kandal province, was summoned to an incitement trial this week at the provincial court, but the hearing was delayed as his lawyer was tied up with the ongoing mass trials in Phnom Penh.
Defense lawyers for nine senior opposition leaders gave conflicting closing statements on Tuesday, with a Bar Association-appointed lawyer requesting a minimum sentence — due to defendants’ age and inability to carry out their plans — as if they had pleaded guilty.
Security guards blocked some protesters outside the Phnom Penh Municipal Court from buying breakfast, and told a street vendor of noodles, meatball soup, pork and rice to not sell to them, the protesters alleged on Thursday while rallying on an empty stomach.
Tapped private phone conversations were debated in court on Thursday as evidence of former opposition party members organizing a plan to topple the government, in the latest hearing in a series of ongoing trials against the outlawed CNRP.
Prosecutors on Friday showed statements, recorded speeches and social media posts from senior opposition leaders — including comments made during a meeting in Lowell, Massachusetts in 2019 — as evidence that nine defendants charged with attacking the government had planned a coup.
Phnom Penh Municipal Court judges on Thursday grilled opposition defendants in ongoing mass trials over the meaning of their social media posts, including how they defined the words “liberate,” “dictator,” “struggle” and “democracy.”
Six case files against 153 CNRP defendants, split into four trials, make up a web of ongoing prosecutions against the outlawed opposition’s senior leaders and grassroots supporters.
A CNRP activist was arrested in Phnom Penh on Tuesday after being seen participating in small ongoing protests against the jailings of opposition supporters, with a rights group saying nearly 70 political and environmental activists have been imprisoned since the start of last year.
Former opposition leader Kem Sokha’s trial for treason, now suspended for 10 months, should be resumed and further delays avoided, his lawyers said in an appeal to the Phnom Penh Municipal Court.
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