Tuesday, 25 September 2012
By Buth Reaksmey Kongkea
Phnom Penh Post 
Pheng
Kunthea Borey (L), the former protocol chief of Senate President Chea
Sim, arrives at Phnom Penh Municipal Court last year prior to a hearing.
Photograph: Hong Menea/Phnom Penh Post
Three former
advisers of Cambodian Senate President Chea Sim who were imprisoned last
year on breach of trust charges are in need of a speedy appeal due to
their declining medical conditions, defence lawyers said yesterday.
Suy
Chhunhak, a lawyer for Chea Sim’s former chief of protocol and
international relations, said that his client, Pheng Kunthea Borey, 57,
was in a frail state from high blood pressure and a heart attack.
“I
am now very concerned about her health and safety. I am afraid that if
her health weakens from day to day, and her appeal hearing is delayed or
not held ... she would not be able to bring her appeal hearing in the
future,” he said.
In recent months, he said, security guards at the prison have taken Kunthea Borey for treatment at a Phnom Penh hospital.
Kunthea
Borey and a handful of senior aides were convicted in 2011 of creating
fake contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars to build schools,
roads, hospitals and other humanitarians services for which they skimmed
off commissions.
They were arrested by military police after an
investigation revealed the forgeries and frauds involving at least 51
foreign companies.
Thong Chan Rithy said that his clients,
former advisers Ponlork Ho, 58, and Khieu Bora, 52, were also suffering
from diabetes and high blood pressure.
“I noted that since they
were convicted and jailed in Prey Sar prison, they were sick and were
hospitalised in the prison,” he said. “I am afraid that if they stay any
longer in prison, they will face challenges.”
A security guard
at the prison, who asked not be named, told the Post yesterday that all
three spent time in the prison hospital after becoming ill.
He
added that Chan Kosal, who was also locked up for his role in the scam,
fell victim to high blood pressure and lung cancer in June and died in
his Prey Sar prison cell.
Ngeth Sarath, deputy vice-prosecutor
of the Court of Appeal, said that the case has been completely
investigated, and the Phnom Penh Court of appeal will hear it next
month.
To contact the reporter on this story: Buth Reaksmey Kongkea at reaksmeykongkea.buth@phnompenhpost.com
2 comments:
That is Okay about those people just let them be with the way they deserved it while they were in power, they never thought to help Khmer anyway. Unless, someone prove their case to public that they had been serving Khmer of interest. If not those are called a peel si-mi peel that is what they deserved it and how they committed a criminal acted to be in that way. There no mercy for them at all to whom they were destroyed Khmer nation in accordance to collect wealth from Khmer to comfort their life as gorgeous style because of their opportunist
By the way, this brief message, want to have all the clans of Cpp seen in their eyes.
Mk
These crooks official must learn their fate and lesson in jail time.....
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