Early prisoner release committee gets new members


Buth Reaksmey Kongkea

The Ministry of Justice has recently appointed new members to the Committee for Conditional Release of Prisoners from Prison who will push forward with the early release of convicts under certain conditions.

The recent appointments on December 27 to the nine-member Committee for Conditional Release of Prisoners from Prison, and signed by the Minister of Justice Keuth Rith, include Dr Kim Santepheap, the Secretary of State at the Ministry of Justice, who was appointed Committee Chairman, while the other members are from departments in the Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Interior.

Lieutenant General Nuth Savana, Deputy Chief of the General Department of Prison in the Ministry of Interior and also a committee member, said yesterday that the committee was created in 2021 with the task of looking into the early release of prisoners under certain conditions.

Lt Gen Savana said the new appointments were made after former members moved to departments in other ministries in the 7th mandate.

“The committee will consider convicts who have served most of their sentence with only five or six months remaining for early release from prison,” Lt Gen Nuth Savana told Khmer Times.

“The early release of prisoners is very important because it assists the General Department of Prisons and the Ministry of Interior a lot,” he said.

“Firstly, it will assist in reducing overcrowding in prisons; secondly, convicts released from prisons will be reintegrated into their communities and they be able to earn an income to support their families; and thirdly to reduce the cost of maintaining prisoners,” he added.

Lt Gen Nuth Savana expressed that the early release of prisoners is based “the reasons of laws, criminology and educational science” while the release of prisoner who are elderly and living with serious and chronic disease, those in the final stages of a serious illness or have some other health problem that make them unable to move and need care, and prisoners who suffer a mental illness is a humanitarian gesture by the government.

He said that between 2021 and 2023, more than 40 convicts were released from prison based on certain conditions across the country.

He added that the number of prisoners in Cambodia has increased to 43,300 inmates.

Among them, 48.95% are drug traffickers, 10.14% convicted of armed robbery, 5.81% for rape, 5.29% murder, and 17.83% for other offences.

There are 2,017 prisoners, including 143 women, who had their sentences reduced by King Norodom Sihamoni in 2023.


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