Another occurrence of frustrated love leading to terrible violence and murder...

- Two men are dead and a woman is seriously ill after a girl’s parents repeatedly rejected a man’s proposal of marriage with their daughter.
Police in Kandal province say a 35-year-old unemployed man, Suon Ottara, attacked the girl’s parents with a sword early yesterday, killing the father and wounding the mother, and a group of angry villagers retaliated by attacking Mr. Ottara.
Bun Chantha, deputy chief of the Kandal Stung district major crime unit, said the two attacks happened at half past midnight at the girl’s house in the village of Rokar.

He said Mr. Ottara, who came from Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district, went to the home of farmer Lonh Lon, 62, and his wife, Vour Rai, 60, and repeatedly stabbed them.
Mr. Lon died immediately from serious abdominal wounds and his wife is in hospital with serious back and abdominal injuries, although police say her life is not in danger.
The villagers then beat Mr. Ottara to death. http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/37729/ ... ed-killer/

The tale of horror as it happened...
Mob justice in Kandal
Tue, 25 April 2017
Mech Dara and Erin Handley

By yesterday morning, two bodies had bled out on the dirt in a Kandal village, the bloody aftermath of Cambodia’s latest chilling incident of mob violence, this time in Kandal Stung district’s Roka commune.
And though both men were murdered, seemingly no one will face a court, with police apparently willing to place responsibility on a mob mentality.

The first man, Lounh Lon, 62, was a father to seven daughters who rebuffed the persistent requests of one suitor, Suon Ottara, 35, who was seeking to marry one of them. At 10pm on Sunday, Ottara allegedly hacked Lon to death as he lay sleeping in a hammock next to his wife, Wor Rey, 60, and their 10-year-old grandson.

Ottara attacked Lon’s head and hands, and twisted a blade into his heart, before also attacking Rey. Her injuries – a partly severed ear and cuts to her neck, shoulder and stomach – required emergency surgery at Phnom Penh’s Preah Kossamak Hospital yesterday.

Hearing cries for help, 30 to 40 people – around half the village – converged on the scene. In the words of Men Chanrith, Kandal Stung district police chief, “the people made a trial for him”. “Villagers took action against him and he was killed.”

After surrounding Ottara, who had holed himself up in a room, the villagers pelted him with rocks and hurled hot water into the room to force him out. The siege continued until around 3:30am, when Ottara was dragged out and beaten with fists, rocks and wooden sticks until he died.

Standing where the suspect was killed, one of Lon’s daughters, Lounh Rattana, defended the actions of the crowd. “We are upset,” Rattana said, her face red from crying. “My father was in so much suffering when he died. The suspect deserved this because he was very brutal.”

For Rattana, Ottara’s fate is a “better justice” than that afforded by the courts.

“It is better that he dies by the villagers’ hands, rather than going to court, because my father is already dead and maybe [Ottara] would not have spared other people if he survived,” she said. “This is a life exchanged for a life, not exchanging a life for jail.”

At hospital with their mother, another daughter, Lon Souna, said she was shocked when she heard of her father’s death, but somewhat relieved to hear his alleged murderer had been killed. “I am not angry any more. It is finished,” she said.

Their views were shared by the overwhelming majority of villagers The Post spoke with yesterday. Though many asserted the killing was the right thing to do, they were also unwilling to put their names to their claims.
“The whole family could have been killed. He must die,” said one woman, rocking her child in a hammock. “[The villagers did] nothing wrong. If we do not kill him, and he kills the whole family, who is responsible for this? It depends on whether we are going to let the man continue to torture and kill again.”

But the police response to the incident remains in question. Though police officer Veatep Sovan said that authorities did not arrive on scene until after Ottara had already passed away, his superior, commune police chief Men Sitha, declined to provide an official comment yesterday...
Full article: http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/m ... ice-kandal