Khmer Times/Taing Vida Friday, 03 June 2016
The National Election Committee (NEC) will examine the possibility of providing legal assistance and a potential bail request for deputy secretary Ny Chakrya, as the scheduled hearing at the Court of Appeal looms for himself and four Adhoc staff arrested last month.
The hearing is set to take place on June 13 as part of the snowballing case surrounding an affair between acting Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP) president Kem Sokha and a hairdresser, a case the five were ensnared in when the hairdresser approached Adhoc for assistance.
The case escalated in May when the four Adhoc officials were charged with bribing a witness, while Mr. Chakrya and UN official Sally Soen, despite his diplomatic immunity, were charged with conspiring to bribe a witness. No evidence has surfaced related to the six’s charges.
The case is widely seen as a political witch hunt and a wider attempt on the government’s part to silence critics and opposition members.
NEC vice-chairman Kuoy Bunroeun yesterday led two other members and four legal officials to visit Mr. Chakrya at the Police Judiciare prison. After the visit, NEC member Hang Puthea said Mr. Chakrya has asked NEC members to find a possible way to guarantee him bail so he can continue his work in the upcoming elections.
“We told him that we would discuss his problem within our group of nine members, but in principal, the NEC cannot interfere in the work of the court or state institutes. We have examined some laws already, but we will look into more to help him,” he said.
Sam Sokong, Mr. Chakrya’s defense lawyer, told Khmer Times yesterday that his client appealed his rejected bail request, with the investigating judge of the Phnom Penh Municipal Court saying they would be required to stay in detention for further investigation and that their release might “cause chaos.”
“If my clients did not refuse, I think they would have been presented at the court on that day.”
The five arrests have reverberated throughout the Kingdom, with human rights activists, outraged by the arrests, launching the Black Monday campaign to draw international attention to the deteriorating human rights crisis in the country.
The campaign has been quashed by the government since its inception, with security forces arresting 13 protesters, while government officials have labelled it as a “color revolution” and an attempt to overthrow the government.