Monday, 7 September 2009

Court Imprisons Arsonist

Written by DAP NEWS -- Sunday, 06 September 2009

Phnom Penh Municipal Court convicted and imprisoned for 3 years a Cambodia man for the burning of 98 residences which resulted in the death of a four-year-old girl, a court official said on Saturday.

Phnom Penh Municipal Court Judge Duch Kim San on September 4 convicted Sok Sophorn for the killing of a young Cambodian girl and the burning of residences at Banteay Sloek in the Chamkar Mon district of Phnom Penh on April 16.

One of the victims said called Sok Sophorn “An addicted drug man, drunkard, gambler, jobless, disturbed; all Cambodian neighbors were not calm about this man named Sok.”

“Before this case, Sok asked for his mother-in-law for CR1,000 to join a game, but his mother disagreed, and Sok asked his sister-in-law, but she also did not agree.

So Sok was very angry and he said that he would burn all these houses before he left.”

He made the threat again after the gamblers also refused to lend him money to play, according to local Russey Keo police.

Sok Sophorn denied the charges. “I was at outside,” he said, though he admitted making the threats. “I took a gas cooker to light my cigarette, and then I went for a walk nearly Sovanna supermarket, but I did not burn anything.”

Sok Phirak, the convicted man’s sister-in-law, said that “I heard a voice to burn the gas cooker, and a few minutes later, after Sok left, the fire had started.”
“I saved only two of my children, but another one I could not find, so she died,” Sok Phirak recalled.

Added another witness, Mao Sitha, “I saw So Phorn hold a gas can and he said that ‘I will burn all these houses’.”

Phnom Penh Municipal Court Prospector Ek Chheng Hourt said that “The accused man who is a dangerous person, he burned many houses and killed one girl of only four years old. We consider this the right ruling.”

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