VZCZCXRO6140
OO RUEHCHI RUEHDT RUEHHM RUEHJO RUEHNH RUEHPOD
DE RUEHPF #0586/01 1150858
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 250858Z APR 07
FM AMEMBASSY PHNOM PENH
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 8353
INFO RUCNASE/ASEAN MEMBER COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEHXI/LABOR COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEHGV/USMISSION GENEVA PRIORITY 1590

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 PHNOM PENH 000586 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR EAP/MLS, DRL/ILCSR--MARK MITTELHAUSER 
GENEVA FOR JOHN CHAMBERLIN 
STATE PLEASE PASS TO LABOR FOR ILAB--BILL BRUMFIELD, JIM 
SHEA, AND CHRIS WATSON 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ELAB KJUS PHUM PGOV CB
SUBJECT: GUILTY VERDICT UPHELD IN CONTROVERSIAL LABOR 
LEADER MURDER TRIAL 
 
REF: A. 04 PHNOM PENH 92 
 
     ¶B. 04 PHNOM PENH 157 
     ¶C. 04 PHNOM PENH 287 
 
¶1.  (SBU) Summary.  On April 12, the Appeals Court upheld 
guilty verdicts against Born Samnang and Sok Sam Oeun, two 
men accused of assassinating national labor leader Chea 
Vichea on January 22, 2004.  The two men have protested their 
innocence, and a vocal local and international community of 
labor and human rights organizations pointed to deficiencies 
in the investigation and trial and consistently called for 
their release.  Most recently, former King Sihanouk urged 
that the two men go free.  Despite the prosecutor admitting 
to gaps in his case and asking for further investigation 
during his closing arguments, the Appeals Court upheld the 
guilty verdict and the original twenty-year sentences.  The 
outcome has generated intense interest locally and 
condemnation from international watchdog organizations.  End 
Summary. 
 
Investigation and Original Trial Widely Viewed as Flawed 
--------------------------------------------- ----------- 
 
¶2.  (SBU) Local and human rights and labor organizations -- 
including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the 
International Confederation of Free Trade Unions -- have said 
that Born Samnang and Sok Sam Oeun are scapegoats and have 
highlighted irregularities in the police investigation and 
subsequent trial.  The case originally came to trial on March 
19, 2004 and was dismissed by Judge Heng Thirith due to lack 
of evidence.  The judge, who said in his decision that he had 
been subject to political pressure to convict the men, was 
removed from his position at the court; his decision to 
release the men was overturned; and the two men were 
convicted by the Appeals Court on August 1, 2005.  The 
prosecutor's case depended largely on confessions from the 
two defendants, though both recanted.  Born Samnang said that 
he was beaten into confessing, and little corroborating 
evidence was presented.  No eyewitnesses were available to 
testify.  Born Samnang and Sok Sam Oeun were arrested based 
on their similarities to a police sketch, though the cyclo 
driver who provided information for the sketch never saw the 
drawing and could not be located to provide additional 
information or identify the captured suspects. 
 
¶3.  (SBU)  Var Sothy, the owner of the newsstand where Chea 
Vichea was killed and an eyewitness to the murder, was too 
fearful to cooperate with police initially, and fled to 
Thailand in March 2006 where she was accorded protective 
status from UNHCR.  From Thailand, she issued a statement 
saying that the two defendants were not involved and that the 
real killers had visited her newsstand one month after the 
killing, when the defendants were in jail.  (Note:  Var Sothy 
relocated to the U.S. in December 2006.  End Note.)  Defense 
witnesses who were prepared to offer alibis for the two men 
were not allowed to testify.  The defendants were found 
guilty and sentenced to 20 years in prison and ordered to pay 
USD 5,000 to Chea Vichea's family. 
 
Irregularities Continue in Appeals Trial 
---------------------------------------- 
 
¶4.  (SBU)  During the appeals trial, held on April 6, 2007, 
defense lawyers for the two men presented alibis for the 
defendants.  Defense lawyers for the purported killer, Born 
Samnang, presented several witnesses who said that he was 
celebrating the Chinese New Year with his girlfriend and her 
family who live more than an hour from Phnom Penh.  Lawyers 
for Sok Sam Oeun, the alleged getaway driver, had a harder 
time making their case as no eyewitnesses were available to 
verify his whereabouts, though the defendant maintained that 
he was in a friend's home in a Phnom Penh suburb at the time 
of the shooting.  Both defendants vigorously denied that they 
were involved in the shooting, and Born Samnang repeated his 
allegations that police had beaten, coerced, and bribed him 
in to falsely confessing. 
 
¶5.  (SBU) Judges encouraged the defense not to present too 
many witnesses, and tried to discredit Born Samnang's mother 
as a character witness.  Two members of the three judge panel 
closed their eyes and appeared to be sleeping at different 
times during the trial.  At one point, one judge was 
apparently asleep, a second was chatting on a cell phone, 
while the third was the only one paying attention to the 
 
PHNOM PENH 00000586  002 OF 003 
 
 
trial. 
 
¶6.  (SBU) During closing remarks, Sok Sam Oeun's defense 
lawyer questioned the veracity of the cyclo driver's 
deposition, and highlighted the newsstand owner's different 
version of events.  Born Samnang's defense lawyer accused the 
police, specifically then Phnom Penh Municipal Police Chief 
Heng Pov and Cambodian National Police Commissioner Hok 
Lundy, of framing the defendants and conducted a media 
campaign to convince the public of their guilt.  In his 
closing statement, the prosecutor, who was new to the case 
and had been unusually inactive during the appeals trial, 
used his closing statement to admit that there were gaps in 
the investigation process and to ask the court to conduct 
further investigation and find the "real killers." 
 
Guilty Verdict Upheld 
--------------------- 
 
¶7.  (SBU) In a very brief session on April 12, the court 
upheld the guilty verdicts of the two men, crediting the 
Municipal Court with reaching a correct decision and noting 
that they did not believe the defense witnesses called on 
April 6.  The defense lawyer for Born Samnang, who was not 
present when the decision was reached, said that he and Sok 
Sam Oeun's lawyer planned to take their appeals to the 
Supreme Court.  A staff member from LICADHO, a human rights 
NGO working as part of a coalition to bring attention to the 
case, said that they would intensify their campaign to free 
the two defendants and urge the government to find the real 
killers.  When asked about the possibility of pursuing a 
pardon from the King, the Executive Director of the Cambodian 
Defenders Project noted that this would require the 
defendants (and implicitly, the NGO community rallying around 
them) to tacitly accept guilt by agreeing to forego an appeal 
to the Supreme Court and to abandon the goal of finding the 
true killers.  Then the Prime Minister would need to request 
that the King pardon the pair.  Government regulations 
require that the PM wait until the inmates serve 2/3 of their 
sentences before requesting a pardon, though in a few 
high-profile cases, such as Princes Ranariddh and Sirivudh, 
this requirement has been waived, he noted. 
 
¶8.  (SBU) Reaction from family members on April 11 was 
subdued, as they appeared to be simply shocked by the news. 
In contrast, an angry Sok Sam Oeun said before the appeals 
hearing on April 6 that the current Cambodian government 
perpetuated injustice and was no different from the Khmer 
Rouge.  At the conclusion of the April 6 hearing, weeping, 
shouting family members of the defendants called on the royal 
family and Cambodia's elected leaders to show the two men 
mercy and release them. 
 
¶9.  (SBU) International observers, family members, and the 
human rights and labor communities were deeply disappointed 
with the verdict and charged that the government had 
attempted to divert as much attention as possible away from 
the trial.  The original appeals trial set for October 6, 
2006 was delayed for six months when one judge was ill with 
diarrhea.  The hearing was re-scheduled for April 6, perhaps 
timed to minimize the political impact on the April 1 commune 
elections, and the decision was announced just before the 
Khmer New Year, a time when Cambodians are traveling, 
celebrating, and paying little attention to the news.  The 
appeals trial on April 6 was delayed by more than two hours 
as the court failed to start on time and several routine 
civil cases were unexpectedly placed ahead of the Chea Vichea 
murder case.  In contrast, at the announcement of the 
decision on April 11, the court came in to session unusually 
promptly at 7:30 am -- before the defense lawyers had arrived 
-- and without notifying many observers and journalists 
waiting outside that they were beginning.  The defendants 
were not brought from prison to hear the decision announced, 
leading to speculation that the court was trying to minimize 
press coverage by not providing a photo-op of the defendants 
and without the presence of many reporters. 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶10.  (SBU) While Cambodia has made some strides in improving 
the Phnom Penh Municipal Court's handling of trafficking in 
persons cases, this disappointing verdict demonstrates that 
Cambodia's culture of impunity and poor legal system persist. 
 
PHNOM PENH 00000586  003 OF 003 
 
 
 The court's decision comes despite widespread belief that 
Born Samnang and Sok Sam Oeun are innocent, an NGO-led media 
campaign to free the pair, and significant questions about 
the police's handling of the case and the fairness and 
perfunctory nature of the trials.  The UN Human Rights Office 
staff and the Canadian Ambassador who attended the Appeals 
Court hearing both opined that Born Samnang's defense 
lawyer's closing statement blaming senior police officials 
for the injustice surrounding the case likely worked against 
any hopes of the two men going free.  In 2004, the embassy 
highlighted problems surrounding this case, and encouraged 
senior RGC officials at the time to keep the case open and 
gather more evidence rather than rush to convict the two men. 
 The court's decision offers little encouragement for efforts 
to find the killers of other slain union leaders -- Ros 
Sovannareth in May 2004 and Hy Vuthy in February 2007. End 
Comment. 
 
 
MUSSOMELI