Earring murders, two different cases #LifeSentenced #GoesFree

[geovalin]

Earring murder: Young girl’s killer earns life sentence

Wed, 7 January 2015

Buth Reaksmey Kongkea

A 24-year-old man was sentenced to life in prison by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday for strangling a 12-year-old girl in 2013 in order to steal her gold earrings worth just $20.

Presiding judge Leang Samnath also ordered defendant Khim Bora, who was unemployed, to pay 30 million riel, about $7,500, in compensation to the family of victim Kang Botum Botey, whose body he disposed of in a pond in Phnom Penh’s Por Sen Chey district.

Lieutenant Colonel Yim Sarann, chief of Por Sen Chey district police, said the victim disappeared from her house on December 2, 2013, and her body was found by villagers the next day.

The victim’s father, Kim Yorn, 60, said outside the courtroom yesterday that he found the decision satisfactory.

“I think that the court’s decision was right, and was just for my daughter,” he said.

Bora, however, pledged to appeal the verdict.

“I think that this court’s conviction is very heavy for me, and I cannot accept it. I will appeal it to the Appeal Court soon,” he said.

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/earring-murder-young-girls-killer-earns-life-sentence

+++++++++++++++++

Murder suspect, 12, goes free

Wed, 7 January 2015

Sean Teehan and Kim Sarom

A 12-year-old Kampong Speu girl who reportedly confessed to luring a 4-year-old relative into a lake and drowning her will face no charges due to her age, raising questions about the limited options in Cambodia’s legal system for dealing with adolescents who commit serious offences.

Instead, the court ordered her mother to pay $2,000 in restitution to the victim’s family, said Sam Sak, director of the provincial crime office. Even that fee will likely go unpaid.

“The court has released her, because since she is under 14, we cannot detain her,” Sak said yesterday. “But the court has ordered her mother to pay the victim $2,000 – however, she cannot pay this, because she is too poor.”

In a videotaped confession made hours after the incident on Saturday, the girl demonstrated how she lured her distant cousin into a lake in Samrong Tong district’s Svay village and drowned her. She then took the girl’s earrings, sold them for $20.50 and bought a $19 mobile phone.

The suspect was taken into police custody and questioned yesterday and Monday, but documents proved she was about a year-and-a-half younger than 14, the age of criminal responsibility in Cambodia.

Cambodia lacks a juvenile court, Cambodian legal expert Sok Sam Oeun said yesterday. In cases where a child under 14 is suspected of a serious crime, it is up to the court to decide how to proceed.

“We have no juvenile court, only one court for everything,” Sam Oeun said yesterday. “The prosecutor, he must decide [whether to pursue charges].”

A draft law on children in conflict with the law has not yet been enacted, Sharon Critoph, prison consultant for rights group Licadho said in an email yesterday, although she believes text for it is being finalised. Children can, however, be put under court supervision.

“The Criminal Code does provide for supervisory, educational, or assistance measures in such cases,” Critoph said. “We are not aware of any such mechanism being regularly implemented, if ever.”

Contact details for the victim’s family were not available.

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/murder-suspect-12-goes-free