An American construction consultant and a Japanese tourist were shot and seriously injured during separate armed robberies in Phnom Penh over the weekend, prompting the Japanese Embassy on Sunday to express concern for the safety of its citizens in Cambodia.

Maurice Law, 57, who lives in Cambodia, was shot in the groin at about 7 p.m. on Friday after being held up at gunpoint while walking home with his wife in Chamkar Mon district’s Tonle Bassac commune.

In a separate incident on Saturday night, Sakiko Takayanagi, 33, a tourist, was robbed and shot in the left leg near the popular Night Market in Daun Penh’s Wat Phnom commune at about 8 p.m.

Pale and visibly shaken in a private room at Calmette Hosptial, where doctors had operated on his groin and left thigh late Friday night, Mr. Law on Sunday described the minutes leading up to the shooting, while his wife Debbie, also 57, recounted the events from her perspective.

The couple said they had been walking home from dinner when two men on a motorbike drove up behind them in an alleyway near the intersection of streets 308 and 21.

“They picked a corner that was very, very dark. And they came up really quietly and the passenger jumped off and was very, very close to me with the gun…two feet [away],” Ms. Law said, adding that she immediately handed over her purse—which she said contained only a small amount of cash—and her iPhone, and began screaming for help.

“I was maybe three steps in front of my wife,” Mr. Law continued, “and then I heard her scream and I turned back and I thought, ‘This is a joke.’ But whoever these two gentlemen were, they were very comfortable with guns. They had a poise about them…. I could see determination on their faces,” Mr. Law said, adding that both men carried handguns.

“So I just told them, ‘Don’t hurt my wife, don’t hurt my wife,’ and they took her bag and got on their moto and drove away, and as they were driving away, they shot at me, and hit me,” Mr. Law said of the vicious attack.

Mr. Sitha added that a similar pair of armed thieves robbed then shot Ms. Takayanagi, the Japanese tourist, at about 8 p.m. on Saturday.

“Their actions were similar [to the perpetrators of Friday’s attack]. They robbed a Japanese woman on the corner of streets 110 and 13,” he said, adding that police still had no leads in the attack that took place on Saturday.

Ms. Takayanagi had been walking alone in the vicinity of the Night Market, a popular tourist attraction, when she was shot in the left thigh, said Yoshihiro Higuchi, deputy head of mission at the Japanese Embassy in Phnom Penh, by telephone Sunday.

“The perpetrators approached and tried to snatch her bag. She resisted and suddenly they shot one [bullet] in her thigh and she was hospitalized,” Mr. Higuchi said, declining to say where Ms. Takayanagi was being treated.

Spoiler:

Mr. Law was then taken in a tuk-tuk to Calmette Hospital, where he was operated on. The bullet had entered his upper groin, exited through his lower groin, then pierced his thigh, leaving a final exit wound “at least as big as a quarter,” Mr. Law said.

The Laws have been coming to Cambodia since 2008, splitting their time between Phnom Penh and Hawaii. Mr. Law works as a construction consultant while his wife volunteers at an orphanage.

The shootings—both perpetrated by pairs of men on a single motorbike—follow a vicious attack by masked men in plain clothes on foreign journalists and peaceful protesters at Wat Phnom on September 22. Nobody has yet been held responsible for the attack, which occurred late at night and under the gaze of riot police.

Municipal foreigner police chief Mom Sitha said Sunday that the perpetrators of Friday’s attack have not yet been identified. “The municipal police are cooperating with other [police] forces to find the robbers, but they are still at large,” Mr. Sitha said.

Mr. Sitha added that a similar pair of armed thieves robbed then shot Ms. Takayanagi, the Japanese tourist, at about 8 p.m. on Saturday.

“Their actions were similar [to the perpetrators of Friday’s attack]. They robbed a Japanese woman on the corner of streets 110 and 13,” he said, adding that police still had no leads in the attack that took place on Saturday.

Ms. Takayanagi had been walking alone in the vicinity of the Night Market, a popular tourist attraction, when she was shot in the left thigh, said Yoshihiro Higuchi, deputy head of mission at the Japanese Embassy in Phnom Penh, by telephone Sunday.

“The perpetrators approached and tried to snatch her bag. She resisted and suddenly they shot one [bullet] in her thigh and she was hospitalized,” Mr. Higuchi said, declining to say where Ms. Takayanagi was being treated.

“I heard that she is okay; she is not in a critical situation,” Mr. Higuchi said, adding that the bullet, still lodged in the victim’s leg, was set to be removed Sunday.

Mr. Higuchi said the Japanese Embassy would next week send out a notice to Japanese citizens living in Phnom Penh, alerting them of the dangers of living in Cambodia.

In March, Japanese businessman Kitakura Kosei was shot dead outside his Boeng Keng Kang I home by two gunmen on a motorbike, who then robbed him of as much as $10,000, which he had won gambling at Phnom Penh’s NagaWorld casino.

“We cannot discourage the Japanese people to come to Cambodia, but nevertheless, we will give them a very serious warning: If you want to come to Cambodia, you have to be always careful…. I cannot [guarantee], the embassy cannot [guarantee], 100-percent safety,” he said.

Mr. Higuchi said the Japanese Embassy is also considering the possibility that the shooting of Ms. Takayanagi is indicative of growing instability in Cambodia as a result of the recent political impasse between the ruling CPP and opposition CNRP.

“We have to analyze carefully if this incident has anything to do with the political situation or not,” he said.

Ho Vandy, co-chair of the state-private working group on tourism policy, also said the weekend’s robbery-shootings, both widely reported in local media, are cause for concern.

“These [crimes] just happen… after the election, we wish to see more safety and more security as [there was] previously.”

“We request to…the police to strengthen the security and safety of all tourists,” he added.

John Simmons, assistant public affairs officer at the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh, declined Sunday to comment on the shooting of Mr. Law.

“We do monitor the security situation in Cambodia and we encourage Americans to sign up for security updates on our website,” he said in an email.

In January 2012, 24-year-old American Richard Arthur was shot in the buttock on Street 51 by a bodyguard allegedly attem pting to prevent the victim from attacking the vehicle in which his unnamed employer was traveling.

Lying in his hospital bed Sunday, Mr. Law said that while he harbored no animosity toward Cambodians, his impression of the country as whole has changed for the worse.

“We’ve got no anger toward anyone, we are just saddened that two people could ruin the reputation of a country,” he said.

“It’s a different Phnom Penh right now.”

National Police spokesman Lieutenant General Kirth Chantharith could not be reached for comment.

John Bingham wrote: ↑Sat Jun 10, 2017 5:58 pm Great thread, I'll see what I can dig up when I get home.

French and Cambodian investigators confer earlier this month at the site where the bodies of French national Laurent Vallier and his four children were found in Kampong Speu province in 2012. Photograph: Stringer
A group of French and Cambodian investigators have ruled out suicide as the cause of death of Frenchman Laurent Vallier, whose decomposed remains – along with those of his four children – were discovered early last year in an SUV in a pond behind his home in Kampong Speu province, the French embassy said on Friday.

The findings of the latest inquest – which began in mid-March under the supervision of French investigating judge Claudine Enfoux – overturned those of a preliminary investigation conducted in January, which found that Vallier, 42, had killed himself and his children by driving his car into the nine-metre-deep pond, possibly because of financial difficulties.

“Thanks to this effective and constant collaboration, many exchanges of files and procedure acts related to the case, advanced forensic research, as well as numerous hearings have indeed been arranged,” an embassy statement reads. “This has led to very significant breakthroughs, which are now ruling out the possibility of a suicide.”

The bodies of Vallier, a widower, and his four small children were discovered in the submerged SUV on January 14, 2012, four months after they had last been seen alive. By the end of the month, police had ruled the deaths a murder-suicide.

However, according to Chem Rithy, an investigating judge with the Kampong Speu Provincial Court who was involved in the re-investigation, a second look at the facts made that conclusion impossible.

First of all, he said, Vallier’s skull was found in a suitcase in the back of the car, despite the fact that the pond had no current that could have moved it from where his body was found in the front passenger’s seat, a fact that also makes it clear he was not the driver.

No evidence of decomposition was found on the driver’s seat, Rithy went on, though a pair of sandals was found on the driver’s side that would have been too small for Vallier. What’s more, the driver’s-side door was not closed properly, indicating that someone had managed to get the vehicle into the pond and then jumped out, he said.

Finally, he continued, there were no other signs of murder-suicide, such as the poison or sleeping pills that often accompany such scenes, and an examination of the car’s electric system showed that it had most likely been pushed into the water, not driven.

“Now we are looking for suspects,” Rithy said, noting that there could have been “three to five people” involved. “Vallier was a very cautious person, because witnesses said he used to say that if any accident happened to him, let his children stay at the French embassy and contact their grandmother in France to come and see them.”

Police are now taking blood samples found in the Frenchman’s house to be tested to determine whether the blood was Vallier’s or an animal’s, he added.

Nicolas Baudouin, a spokesman for the French embassy, confirmed that the French investigators were leaving Cambodia, and that investigating Judge Enfoux would “take the findings back to France and continue to process them”.

“The family has lodged a complaint in France, and so she will be following up on that,” he said. “She will be examining the results of the hearing, the evidence that she has been collecting, and we will see what happens next.”

Vallier’s father-in-law, Tith Chhuon, said the investigation had only validated what he had been saying all along.

“From the beginning, I didn’t believe at all that my son-in-law and his children committed suicide because they didn’t have enough food to eat,” he said.

“I always thought it must be something [else], and now [they think] the same as I do.”

Chhuon, his wife and his daughter were questioned by the provincial court in January of this year after they applied for titles granting ownership of Vallier’s land, and again by French investigators earlier this month.

The relatives were never named as suspects, and Chhuon said at the time that he had applied for the title simply because he was the next of kin.

“I don’t know what misdeeds befell my grandchildren and son-in-law before they died,” Chhoun said yesterday, adding that there was no particular person that he suspected. “Nowadays, when I rest on my bed, I always look at their photos and grieve for them.”

And then there was the supposed murder-suicide case of a French family in September 2011. A team of ten French investigators went to Cambodia to follow up on the case, however, and the conclusions they shared this month inspire little confidence in the original story.

Cambodian police had already decided that life had become too much for 42-year-old Frenchman Laurent Vallier, who they claimed had killed his four young children, before driving their bodies into a pond behind the family home where he drowned. That was supposed to be the end of the tragic matter, but his family and the French embassy in Phnom Penh were far from convinced.

For several weeks the French team carried out forensic tests at the site. They found that the driver’s door was open and the state of the car’s electrics was consistent with the vehicle having been pushed into the pond.

They also discovered that Cambodian police had failed to notice that Vallier’s skull was sitting in a suitcase in the back of his SUV.

The evidence was obviously inconsistent with murder-suicide and the focus has now shifted to his Khmer in-laws. Police initially thought there was nothing unusual about Vallier’s brother-in-law claiming ownership of land that Vallier, a widower, and his two sons and two daughters had lived on. His wife died during childbirth in 2009.

Police now say they believe three to five people were involved with the murders.

The French embassy tactfully said in a statement that the investigation “has led to breakthroughs which are now ruling out the possibility of suicide.”

This tragic case highlights a problematic trend, rooted in economics, which is widespread among Cambodia’s police, who are often accused of corruption and protecting the influential.

juansweetpotato wrote: ↑Fri Jun 09, 2017 9:59 pm I had the idea of creating a thread of old news articles from Cambodia. A place people can put anything they come across that they found interesting, unusual etc, on Cambodia from a few years ago.


From 2001

Woman Killed by Grenade Explosion in Cafe
BY SAING SOENTHRITH | MARCH 16, 2001

https://www.cambodiadaily.com/archives/ ... afe-20582/

After an argument at a karaoke parlor, a drunken bus conductor threw a grenade into a nearby coffee shop Wed­nesday night in Phnom Penh, killing a woman and injuring a bystander, police said.

Hin Bor, 21, had been drinking at a Monivong Boulevard nightclub with Ham Savet, 34, a former military policeman, when the men argued with a group of youths, said Chhay Thirith, Sras Chak commune police chief.

When the youths taunted the two Banteay Meanchey province residents for dressing like country bumpkins and drinking traditional rice wine, the two men followed them into the street, seeking revenge, Chhay Thirith said. Moments later, Hin Bor spotted one member of the group, Sao Sam­bor, 23, at the coffee shop and lobbed a grenade inside, Chhay Thirith said.

Chhoeu Sokha, 26, owner of the coffee shop at Monivong and Street 86, died at Calmette Hos­pital shortly after midnight, police said. Sao Sambor lost three fingers on his right hand.

Police arrested Hin Bor and Ham Savet and confiscated a handgun and a second grenade from the former military policeman, said Pol Davy, a spokesman for Municipal Military Police. Ma Sok Heng, the ringleader of the youths, also was arrested.

juansweetpotato wrote: ↑Sat Jun 10, 2017 10:10 am This was the guy who was a major player in child prostitution, hard drugs, murder and mayhem etc etc.

From 2008
Cambodia probes chopper crash that killed police chief

https://khmerisation.wordpress.com/2008 ... ice-chief/

PHNOM PENH (AFP) – Cambodian authorities on Monday pledged to investigate a helicopter crash that killed the country’s powerful top policeman, amid conflicting reports about the doomed craft’s last moments.

Chief of police Hok Lundy died along with deputy army commander Sok Sa Em and two pilots on Sunday evening when their chopper went down in bad weather shortly after taking off from Phnom Penh airport.

“There will be an immediate investigation of the cause of the crash,” government spokesman Khieu Kanharith told AFP, without providing further details.

Ministry of interior spokesman Khieu Sopheak said that “in general, the crash was caused by bad weather” but there were witness reports that the tail of the helicopter may have hit something on its way down and caught fire.

“According to eyewitnesses, there was a fire on the tail of the helicopter before the crash, but this is not the official reason for the crash,” Khieu Sopheak said.

Hok Lundy had been a close associate of Prime Minister HE for nearly three decades, and one of his daughters is married to one of the premier’s sons.

Born in 1950 and a former governor of southeastern Svay Rieng province, where the crash occurred, Hok Lundy was appointed national police chief in 1994.

He was routinely criticised by international organisations for alleged human rights abuses and corruption within his force, and last year Human Rights Watch said Hok Lundy “represents the absolute worst that Cambodia has to offer.”

The police chief was accused of involvement in drug trafficking and politically motivated killings, including a 1997 grenade attack against anti-government demonstrators that killed at least 19 people and wounded more than 120 others.

However, he was also praised by US officials for cooperation in counter-terrorism.

Human rights groups protested a decision to allow him a visa to the United States last year for counter-terrorism talks with the FBI.

The State Department had refused him a visa in 2006 due to allegations he was involved in trafficking prostitutes.

Before leaving for his trip last year, Hok Lundy said the allegations against him were cooked up by his political opponents.

“The US government thinks that I am a good law enforcement leader,” he told local media.

neuropathic wrote: ↑Mon Jun 12, 2017 12:05 am

juansweetpotato wrote: ↑Fri Jun 09, 2017 9:59 pm I had the idea of creating a thread of old news articles from Cambodia. A place people can put anything they come across that they found interesting, unusual etc, on Cambodia from a few years ago.


From 2001

Woman Killed by Grenade Explosion in Cafe
BY SAING SOENTHRITH | MARCH 16, 2001

https://www.cambodiadaily.com/archives/ ... afe-20582/

After an argument at a karaoke parlor, a drunken bus conductor threw a grenade into a nearby coffee shop Wed­nesday night in Phnom Penh, killing a woman and injuring a bystander, police said.

Hin Bor, 21, had been drinking at a Monivong Boulevard nightclub with Ham Savet, 34, a former military policeman, when the men argued with a group of youths, said Chhay Thirith, Sras Chak commune police chief.

When the youths taunted the two Banteay Meanchey province residents for dressing like country bumpkins and drinking traditional rice wine, the two men followed them into the street, seeking revenge, Chhay Thirith said. Moments later, Hin Bor spotted one member of the group, Sao Sam­bor, 23, at the coffee shop and lobbed a grenade inside, Chhay Thirith said.

Chhoeu Sokha, 26, owner of the coffee shop at Monivong and Street 86, died at Calmette Hos­pital shortly after midnight, police said. Sao Sambor lost three fingers on his right hand.

Police arrested Hin Bor and Ham Savet and confiscated a handgun and a second grenade from the former military policeman, said Pol Davy, a spokesman for Municipal Military Police. Ma Sok Heng, the ringleader of the youths, also was arrested.

Isn't this the incident that killed Dave Peaceman's wife?