Accused Kem Ley killer not cooperating: ministry

Manekseka Sangkum: 

1- The suspected 'assassin' not wearing a mask [was he meant to be identified to conceal the identity of the real killer?], 2- wearing double shirts in a very warm climate [was he planning to rid of the top shirt after the killing, or was the shirt previously worn by someone else who committed the deed?], 3- why was he caught so quickly by the police forces after the incident? [was there a routine police presence near and around the gas station that had not been out of the ordinary prior to the incident?], 4- was the suspect's given name - 'choub somlab' [meet-to-kill] something he made up in a hurry because that was his code-name and instruction for the assignment, or was he instructed to use the name [along with the story about the money debt owed to him by the victim] to preempt the suspicion as to the motives and identity of those behind him and the killing?, 5- why has the close-circuit camera video footage not been released or discussed by the authorities? Is it because they want to protect the sensitive details of the investigation, or because the captured details in the footage compromise the true identity and masking of the mastermind[s]?  

Note point 4 indicates that the organiser[s] had not thought through carefully over the credibility of the pretext used to explain the assassination i.e. that the victim owed the killer some few thousand dollars. The circumstantial and material contrast between the 'assassin' and the victim invalidates the claim, casting even more suspicions as to the identity of powerful forces behind the scene and the suspect. 

Yet, ultimately and credible or not, this kind of random elimination of, or attack on,  the regime's perceived critics and dissidents would invariably conclude with the politically aligned and partial court system. If this suspect had not been found to front the killing, the high profile nature of the crime itself would have necessitated the arrest and prosecution of some other innocents as scapegoats to complete the story - as had been done with the killing of the trade union leader and activist Chea Vichea - or by eliminating the lead - as was the case with the Chhut Wutty murder. It is reported that the families of the men who violently attacked the two opposition law-makers recently have even moved to a bigger house after their respective heads of household have been imprisoned! This stands in stark contrast to the circumstances of families of those opposition figures and activists currently detained in prison who are suffering severe financial and economic hardships.  

In essence, this pattern of killings has been in vogue since the organised mass killings in the 1970s that have made the country synonymous with "genocide" and brutality around the world. That this particular suspect even has a past in the Pol Pot military [presumably as a young recruit along the border with Thailand before joining the non-communist resistance faction, and later on the State of Kampuchea regime] and of peasant background is interesting and pertinent. The rank and file, as well as the base or grass-roots, of the KR movement consisted of Cambodia's overwhelming rural population; semi-literate or illiterate and easily susceptible to communist indoctrination and propaganda persuasion. There were many prominent 'Kem Leys' then whom the KR targeted and executed, along with a wholesale class of educated population by order of that same mysterious and invisible power behind the scene. Had these thousands of the nation's educated people not been murdered, it is unlikely that the present regime that Hanoi put in place in 1979 would have survived to this day; nor would the country have been raped and plundered on the same devastating scale with such impunity. At least, not without provoking a more widespread or populist revolt and unrest within the ranks of the populace...      

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Police stand next to Oeut Ang earlier this month at the Phnom Penh Municipal Police headquarters after he was arrested for the murder of political analyst Kem Ley. Photo supplied

Accused Kem Ley killer not cooperating: ministry

Thu, 28 July 2016 ppp

Mech Dara

Oeut Ang, 44, the alleged killer of political analyst Kem Ley, is not answering investigators’ questions and has refused to acknowledge his parents, according to a senior Interior Ministry official.

“The perpetrator did not answer anything and did not recognise his parents,” Interior Ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak told local news outlet Kampuchea Thmey yesterday.

Sopheak, who could not be contacted by the Post yesterday, also said the security camera footage from the Phnom Penh petrol station where Ley was shot on July 10 had been sent to court and would be released once the investigation was completed, though he did not provide a time frame.

In a video released by police, Ang called himself Choub Samlab or “meet to kill”, and initially “confessed” to killing Ley because he owed Ang $3,000; however, interviews with the suspect’s wife, mother and neighbours have cast some doubt over that motive.