EX-CNRP Commune Chief Ms. Kem Tola Jailed over Incitement

 


Buth Reaksmey Kongkea 

Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday jailed a former commune chief of the court-dissolved Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) after she was arrested while trying to flee the country on Sunday.

 She had been at large when the court on August 10 had sentenced her in absentia to 18 months in jail for incitement committed over Facebook between 2018 and 2021. 

Anti-Terrorism and Transnational Crime Police Officer Lieutenant Colonel Long Bunsong yesterday identified her as Kem Tola, 36, a former chief of Treng Rayoeng commune in Kampong Speu province’s Phnom Srouch district.

Lt Col. Bunsong said that the accused was arrested in accordance with the court’s arrest warrant. 

“She was arrested on Sunday afternoon while she attempted to flee to Germany by taking a flight at the Phnom Penh International Airport,” he said.

He added that after her arrest she was sent to the Phnom Penh Municipal Court which ordered her to serve out her sentence. 

Tola’s lawyer Ket Khy said yesterday that his client’s arrest as well as her absentia conviction by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court was injustice because it was the same offence for which she had served out a jail sentence imposed by the Kampong Speu Provincial Court last year. 


Khy said that Kampong Speu Provincial Court sentenced Tola to a year in prison on the incitement charge but this was reduced to three months following an appeal. 

He added that since her release, Tola had never been involved with former opposition leader Sam Rainsy or other former CNRP officials living in exile abroad. 

“After her arrest, my client appealed to the court to drop the jail sentence and conduct her trial again because she was innocent,” Khy said. “She has also appealed to Court of Appeal because the Phnom Penh Municipal Court had charged and jailed her for the same offence that the Kampong Speu Provincial Court had punished her for. 

Both Investigating Judge Khun Sona and Phnom Penh Municipal Court’s Spokesman Plong Sophal could not be reached for comment yesterday.

 


 

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