Wasn't there a similar case recently where the mother or guardian of a victim retracted the complaint after having received payment from the accused?
The victim's family must be compensated appropriately, but this should not be substituted for or used to waive the offense committed. Otherwise the crime will likely reoccur and someone else is destined to meet similar fate.
Actually, it should not be left to Ms Mu Sochua, an opposition MP, to go chasing the case or the criminal - that is, strictly speaking, the duty of her counterparts in the government.
That said, it is at least a testimony to the relevance and merit of political pluralism and civil society, which, it must be stated, are seen as something of a threat rather than constructive partners by the power that be.
As mentioned in the letter sent by the concerned Malaysian citizen to Khmerization, he or she had to search for Cambodian websites on the internet and identified Khmerization - an anonymous news aggregating blog - as someone to contact! Now, unless I'm grossly mistaken, this covert news blog is one of a handful of Cambodian news outlets that is more probably than not being blacklisted by the Phnom Penh regime!
And just a thought: had Mu Sochua been sent to jail as Hun Sen threatened to do so not long ago, Cambodia would have wasted another energetic human rights defender and experienced campaigner.
Kouprey
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