Cambodian court sentences Thai, Chinese and local 7 drug suspects to long prison term

The accused 7 were brought to court.


PHNOM PENH (AP) - A Cambodian court sentenced seven people, including one Thai and five Chinese nationals, to at least 20 years in prison each for running the country's first known drug laboratory, a judge said today.Iv Kim Sry, a Phnom Penh Municipal Court judge, said he convicted and sentenced one Cambodian, one Thai and five Chinese nationals on drug production charges on Thursday. Two of the Chinese suspects were convicted and sentenced in absentia.Cambodian authorities arrested the suspects in April during a raid of a drug laboratory on an isolated farm 100 kilometers west of the capital, Phnom Penh. They seized some 5 tons of chemicals, including about 3 tons of thionyl chloride, which is used to produce amphetamines.It was Cambodia's first discovery of a laboratory producing synthesized drugs.