Quartet tried on drug charges

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Buth Reaksmey Kongkea

Two Lao men and two ethnic Kuoy men were tried in Phnom Penh Municipal court yesterday for allegedly trafficking approximately two kilograms of methamphetamine.

The group was apprehended by undercover police officers to whom they tried selling the drugs in December 2012.

According to presiding judge Sous Sam Ath, Laotians Amphorn Koumphoan, 30, and Vongphim Khambai, 52, and Cambodians Nath Thorng, 36, and Nath Suth, 18, stand accused of smuggling the drugs across the Lao border into Cambodia.

“They have brought the drugs from the Cambodian-Lao border to Preah Vihear province to Phnom Penh. They were arrested by anti-drug police when they brought it to sell to undercover police,” he said.

According to Captain Heap Daroath, chief of the Anti-Drug Police Unit in the Ministry of Interior, officers spent a month investigating and establishing a relationship with the group before they agreed to sell the drugs for an estimated $10,000.

In court, Vongphim said he was not a drug trafficker, but simply came to Cambodia to purchase medicine to treat a liver condition from which he suffers.

All four men denied the charges against them at court yesterday.

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/quartet-tried-drug-charges

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Indonesian trafficker sentenced

Thu, 16 January 2014

Buth Reaksmey Kongkea

An Indonesian national was sentenced yesterday by Siem Reap Provincial Court to 30 years in prison and fined 40 million riel (about $5,000) for smuggling 2.5 kilograms of cocaine from Indonesia to Cambodia last year, a court official said.

Deputy prosecutor Srea Ratanak said 27-year-old Ita Amparawati was found guilty on charges of keeping, transporting and trafficking drugs.

Major Oum Sa Ath, chief of the Siem Reap Provincial Anti-Drug Police, said Amparawati had travelled from Indonesia to Siem Reap last July. She was arrested after customs police found three large packages of cocaine hidden in her luggage.

Neither Amparawati nor her defence lawyer could be reached for comment yesterday.

Large quantities of drugs – particularly cocaine and methamphetamines – have been seized at Cambodia’s airports in recent years. But while the traffickers – many of them young, foreign women – have been slapped with steep sentencing, few ringleaders have been uncovered.

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/indonesian-trafficker-sentenced