Diplomatic Briefing
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Newsline: French embassy in Cambodia says bodies identified as missing family
DNA tests have confirmed that the remains of five people found in a submerged car in Cambodia in January are those of a Frenchman and his four young children, embassy officials said Thursday. The Cambodian government has agreed to send the skeletal remains to France for “additional examination” by forensics experts, the French embassy in Phnom Penh said in a statement. No cause of death has been determined yet for widower Laurent Vallier, 42, and his young children. The family’s badly decomposed bodies were discovered inside Vallier’s white 4×4 vehicle after it was retrieved from a large pond behind his house in southern Kampong Speu province on January 14. Judicial inquiries into the deaths have been launched in France and Cambodia. Vallier and his two sons and two daughters, thought to have been aged from two to nine, had been missing since September. Vallier’s Cambodian wife died in childbirth in 2009. “I believe my son-in-law and my grandchildren would not have committed suicide. I believe they were murdered,” the late Frenchman’s Cambodian father-in-law Tith Chhuon told AFP. Vallier, who according to his relatives worked as a tour guide, is understood to have moved from France to Cambodia around 12 years ago, arriving in Kampong Speu in 2007. When police pulled his car out of the water they said they found several bones inside an open suitcase, having apparently drifted in there over time as the vehicle is thought to have lain submerged for weeks. An urn was also among the items recovered from the muddied car and relatives said it appeared to be the same one that contained the ashes of Vallier’s wife.
http://news.ph.msn.com/regional/article.aspx?cp-documentid=6083322
Newsline: Interpol on diplomat’s trail
The net widened in the hunt for Nan Sy, the disgraced former Cambodian Ambassador to Brunei, with officials announcing that Interpol had tracked him to an undisclosed hideout. Kirth Chantharith, a spokesman for Cambodia’s national police, said Interpol had joined the search for Nan Sy following his conviction in absentia in November for embezzling more than $430,000 of state funds he had been entrusted with to build a Cambodian Embassy in Brunei in 2008. Nan Sy was charged on June 17 with embezzling these funds, following a complaint from Deputy Prime Minister Hor Namhong. “Interpol knows Nan Sy’s whereabouts and the place he is hiding. He will be arrested soon,” Kirth Chantharith said yesterday. He could not reveal details about Nan Sy’s exact location or when Interpol planned to arrest Nan Sy; however, officials have told the Post in the past that they suspected the fugitive was hiding in Saudi Arabia. Nan Sy, 48, a former Funcinpec lawmaker, was sentenced to four years in jail and fined 8 million riels (US$2,000) last November. In a civil case, Phnom Penh Municipal Court last Thursday ordered Nan Sy, who was ambassador to Brunei until last May, to pay almost US$470,000 in compensation and damages to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Ky Tech, a government lawyer, yesterday urged the Phnom Penh Municipal Court to begin auctioning Nan Sy’s two properties as a way of paying the ministry. Nan Sy owned two plots of land, including one in Phnom Penh’s Tuol Kork district and another in Kampong Chhnang province, Ky Tech said.
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012020854375/National-news/interpol-on-diplomats-trail.html
Newsline: Thai embassy seeks to help detainees in Cambodia
Even though the Thai embassy was not allowed to visit Mr Veera, its officials delivered food to him in prison twice a day. The doctors at the Prey Sar prison told the officials only that Veera was having a minor cold. On learning from a news report that his relatives visited Mr Veera at the prison on Mar 4 and found he was seriously ill, the embassy had sought permission from the prison to send a doctor to see him in jail or take him out for treatment. Mr Veera and his secretary Ratree Pipatanapaiboon and five other Thais, including Democrat Party MP Panich Vikitsreth, were arrested by Cambodian soldiers on Dec 29, initially for illegal entry. Mr Veera and Ms Ratree were later additionally charged with espionage. The Phnom Penh Municipal Court sentenced the five to nine months for illegal entry. The five Thais, including Mr Panich, were freed after their remaining jail time of eight months was suspended. Mr Veera and Ms Ratree were later sentenced to eight and six years imprisonment for espionage. Concerning their wish to seek a royal pardon, the embassy said the two had to consult their lawyers to set the time for submitting a request. After that the embassy would facilitate the submission of it, he added.
Newsline: Phnom Penh threatens to expel UN country head for ‘interference’
The Cambodian government said Monday that the United Nations office in Cambodia had overstepped its mandate by speaking out on the process under which the country’s long-delayed anti-corruption law was recently put to parliament. The comments from the foreign ministry followed a weekend letter by Foreign Minister Hor Namhong to the UN resident coordinator Douglas Broderick, threatening to expel him from Cambodia. “The unwarranted comments made by you in connection with the adoption of Cambodia’s Anti-Corruption Law [are] a flagrant and unacceptable interference in the internal affairs of Cambodia,” the minister wrote. “Any further repetition of such behaviour would compel the Royal Government of Cambodia to resort to a ‘persona non grata’ decision,” Hor Namhong concluded. The UN office in Cambodia was not available for comment Monday. Koy Kuong, a spokesman for the ministry, said the government felt the UN had gone too far in its March 10 comments requesting that it allocate more time to opposition parliamentarians, civil society and donors to examine the law’s provisions. “It is a purely internal affair of Cambodia, and they commented on the process of adoption,” he said. “The comment is similar to what the opposition [Sam Rainsy Party] said.” Cambodia’s anti-corruption law took more than 15 years from proposal to reaching parliament. Asked whether the letter meant the government felt donors – which provided half of its 1.8-billion-US-dollar budget last year – had no right to speak out on programmes they funded, Koy Kuong replied that the government’s response was made “on a case-by-case basis.” Cambodia is one of the poorest and most corrupt countries in the world, ranked 158th out of 180 countries on Transparency International’s latest corruption perceptions index. Last year the US ambassador to Cambodia outraged the government when she said the country was losing 500 million dollars a year to the scourge.
Newsline: Sweden to close six embassies, open 10 new ones
The Swedish government said it would close six Swedish embassies, including five in Europe, this year and open 10 new embassies. Embassies facing closure were based in European Union members Bulgaria, Ireland, Luxembourg, Slovakia, and Slovenia. “Within the framework of the close cooperation that exists between the EU member states, there is scope for developing new forms for maintaining bilateral contacts in future,” Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said. Meanwhile, Sweden is to upgrade its missions in Albania, Kosovo, Georgia and Moldova to embassies. The sixth embassy to be closed was in Dakar, Senegal, while section offices were to be upgraded in Senegal’s West African neighbours Burkina Faso, Liberia and Mali as well as Rwanda, Bolivia and Cambodia.
Newsline: Cambodia not concerned by absence of Thai ambassador
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said his government is not affected by whether Thailand sends back its ambassador to Cambodia. In a speech to graduate students in Phnom Penh, Hun Sen also said he wants Thailand to stop issuing conditions for returning its ambassador to Cambodia. ”Stop talking about sending back your ambassador,” he said. ”The presence of a charge d’affaires is enough.” Hun Sen was apparently referring to Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya’s remarks that Bangkok would consider sending back its ambassador once Cambodia rescinds the appointment of fugitive former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra as economic adviser. Cambodia’s relations with the Thai government, already tense due to a border dispute that flared up last year, further deteriorated in November with the appointment of Thaksin as personal adviser to Hun Sen as well as economic adviser to the government. Thailand subsequently recalled its ambassador from Phnom Penh in protest and has since been reviewing bilateral agreements and commitments signed between the two countries. Cambodia also recalled its ambassador one day later.
http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewiStockNews/articleid/3774276
Newsline: Cambodian king pardons convicted Thai spy
Cambodia’s King Norodom Sihamoni pardoned a Thai man jailed for seven years for spying on fugitive former Thai premier Thaksin Shinawatra during a visit to Phnom Penh, the government said. Siwarak Chothipong, 31, an employee at the Cambodia Air Traffic Service, will be released from prison Monday to his family and a delegation from Thailand’s main opposition party, a Cambodian government spokesman said. His arrest last month deepened a diplomatic crisis over Cambodia’s appointment of Thaksin as an economic adviser and its refusal to extradite the ousted leader to Thailand when he travelled to Phnom Penh last month. Cambodia expelled the first secretary of Thailand’s embassy in Phnom Penh after alleging that Siwarak had passed information to the diplomat. Thailand retaliated in kind hours later.
Newsline: Airport worker jailed for spying on Thaksin
A Thai airport worker has been sentenced to seven years in jail after being found guilty of spying on Thailand’s former prime minister in Cambodia. The case surround’s last month’s controversial visit to Phnom Penh by Thailand’s convicted former prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra. Thirty-one-year-old Siwarak Chothipong was found guilty of passing on information about Thaksin’s flight plans to a diplomat at the Thai Embassy in the Cambodian capital.
Newsline: Cambodia expels Thailand’s embassy staffer
Cambodia expelled the first secretary of Thailand’s embassy in Phnom Penh after alleging a Thai national passed information to the diplomat. Thailand retaliated hours later. The Thai national charged with spying on a visit by fugitive former Thai Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra is on trial in Cambodia. Siwarak Chothipong has plead not guilty to the charges of breaching national security and public safety in Cambodia. The 31 year old was employed at the Thai-owned air traffic services company at Phnom Penh airport when Thaksin Shinawatra travelled to the city a month ago to take up a role as economic advisor. Siwarak is accused of passing on Thaksin’s flight plan to Thai officials, who have been seeking the former leader’s extradition. The Thai-run air services company has since been taken over by the Cambodian government, as part of a series of tit for tat moves between the two countries. Earlier this year, both countries also withdrew their respective ambassadors in the dispute over Thaksin’s appointment.
http://www.radioaustralianews.net.au/stories/200912/2765457.htm?desktop
