Alleged UK fraud case in court once more

Manekseka Sangkum: Much of the ELCs granted to foreign firms over the recent decades are nothing more or less than a form of legalised fraud, beside being unconstitutional in principle.

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British national Gregg Fryett appears in Phnom Penh Municipal Court last year over a case of alleged fraud. Pha Lina

Alleged UK fraud case in court once more

Tue, 3 May 2016 ppp

Niem Chheng

The protracted trial of alleged British fraudster Gregg Fryett continued at Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday, this time focusing on documents allegedly faked by his International Green Energy company in order to illegally clear thousands of hectares of state land.

Presiding judge Chuon Sokreasey accused Fryett and his alleged accomplices – Um Sam Ang, Ouk Keo Ratanak and Soeun Denny – of forging “more than 20” documents, a charge Fryett denied.

“The documents were faked in English,” Sokreasey said. “After producing these documents, IGE sent them to a company in England.”

Fryett, however, maintained the documents were genuine, and were all “acknowledged by local authorities”.

Presented with a purported map of his projects marked in Khmer script, Fryett maintained he had no knowledge of it, and demanded to see the English original.

He also claimed he hired a law firm to draw up the documents to ensure their legality.

Fryett is also wanted in the UK for allegedly defrauding senior citizens by selling them stakes in a spurious Cambodian biofuel company.