Tuesday, 29 June 2010

Court hears two cases of meth trafficking


via Khmer NZ News Media

Tuesday, 29 June 2010 15:02 Chrann Chamroeun

PHNOM Penh Municipal Court on Monday heard two drug cases involving three people charged with trafficking crystal methamphetamine, or ice.

In one, a 20-year-old Vietnamese man was arrested last year after police found him carrying less than a gram of ice in a cigarette, and a 46-year-old Vietnamese woman was arrested during a raid of the man’s home.

The man, Ly Pi, told the court on Monday that he had merely been delivering a package of cigarettes on behalf of a man who worked with him at a construction site, and that he did not know it contained drugs. The woman, Vieng Tibay, said she barely knew Li Pi, having approached him just a few days before their arrest for help in securing a job at the construction site. But presiding judge Suos Sam Ath rejected their testimonies, calling them “liars”.

In the second case, a 26-year-old Cambodian woman confessed to having sold small packages of ice for 25,000 riels (about US$6) each, but requested that judges give her a lenient sentence, saying she needed to sell drugs to support her children.

No verdict date was set in either case.