Appeal Court Rejects Seng Theary's Release Request



Buth Reaksmey Kongkea

 

The Phnom Penh Appeal Court on September 2022 conducted in absentia the hearing of request of release of the accused Seng Chan Theary who was sentenced in June by the municipal court  to 6 years  linking with the former opposition leader Sam Rainsy and Mu Sochua’s activities and plan’s return from their exiled living abroad on November 9, 2019.

 

The Phnom Penh Appeal Court did not release her from the prison as she had requested.

 

Presiding Judge Yun Narong said that in this case, the accused Seng Chan Theary was sentenced on June 14 by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court to  6 years in prison.

 

She was charged with two counts of “plotting and incitement to commit a felony or cause social unrest” under articles 453, 494 and 495 of the Criminal Code.

 

He said that Seng Chan Theary was arrested on June 14 and now has been detained in prison, in Preah Vihear province.





 

He added that as  the accused Seng Chan Theary was detained in prison, she wrote to the Phnom Penh Appeal Court and asked for her release from the prison via her defense lawyer Chuong Chou Ngy.

 

 

Seng Chan Theary’s lawyer  Chuong Chou Ngy   said that both rulings  of the  Phnom Penh Municipal Court and the Phnom Penh Appeal Court are unjust for his client and he did not agree with it. 

 

Chou Ngy said that  Theary was sentenced on June 14 by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court  and  after her sentence, police immediately arrested her ( she  then held a protest along with a group of protesters) , pushed her into police’s car and immediately sent her to detention in the Correctional Centre 2 [ C2]  in the outskirts of the city, in Dangkor district.

 

He noted that  next day, June 15, Theary was transferred from the Correctional Centre 2 [C2] by a police’s car and sentenced to stay in the Preah provincial prison, in Cambodian-Thai-Border. 

 

He added that Theary’s arrest and jail violated 353, 398 and 306 of the Criminal Code Procedures, and also violated Article 38 of the Cambodian Constitution.  

 

“According to the Articles 353, 398 and 306  of the Criminal Codes Procedures, within the appeal period, the implementation of the verdict to go against the accused must be delayed until there is a final decision from the Supreme Court,” Chou Ngy said.

 

“For this case, the verdict of the Phnom Penh Municipal Court had not yet come into effect. So it cannot be applied to my client,” he said.

 

“Only if the verdict is final will the police be able to execute my client,” he added.  

 

Yi Soksan, the Senior Monitor of the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association (ADHOC), told the Khmer Times yesterday that Theary’s hearing is not fair for her because she did not attend her hearing.

 

 Soksan added that the authorities should bring her from her detention in the far province, in Preah Vihear, to talk face to face at the Phnom Penh Appeal Court’s room.

 

“I think that the transfer of Miss. Chan Theary from Phnom Penh to detain in the prison, in Preah Vihear,  was the authorities’ intention in order to make her psychological torture and a ravage because she used to seriously criticize the government leaders and against the authorities,” Soksan told Khmer Times.

 

“Her far detention has affected her and her relatives’ economy,” he said.




 

But Lieutenant General Nuth Savna, the Deputy Director and also the Spokesman at the General Department of Prisons in the Ministry of Interior, said that the transferring of accused Seng Chan Theary from Phnom Penh to temporarily detain in Preah Vihear provincial prison in order to prevent her from being created difficulties, riots and chaos in the Correctional Centre 2 [CC2]  as well as any protest organized by the people or opposition society organizations in Phnom Penh.

 

He added that it did not relate with political issues or the violation of the laws or the human rights or the issues as raised by other civil societies.

 

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