Alleged child rapist caught + Guards face court over girl’s rape

[geovalin]

Mom Kunthear and Sean Teehan

Less than a week into the New Year, a man on a bicycle approached a group of children walking home from school.

A robber was just up the road, the man wearing a medical mask allegedly told the group of 7- and 8-year-olds. They should hide with him in the woods.

Once there, the “good Samaritan” ordered the children to remove their clothes and lie down with their eyes closed, police said. He then picked out one 8-year-old, raped her and rode away on a motorbike he had stored nearby.

Word of the attack in Banteay Meanchey province’s Mongkol Borei district quickly spread.

“As a result [of the rape] there were additional [police] patrols … focused around school buildings,” James McCabe, operations manager at the Phnom Penh-based Child Protection Unit, said yesterday.

And it appears to have worked. On Monday, McCabe and district police in Banteay Meanchey said, authorities caught a man who confessed to the previous rape after allegedly attempting to do the same thing again. Moun Seth, a 21-year-old construction worker will appear in Banteay Meanchey Provincial Court this morning. He is charged with kidnapping and rape, McCabe said.

Luckily, the group of nine schoolchildren in the same district who came across Seth on Monday had been warned about him and were suspicious when he approached them as they left school at about 1:30pm, saying there were “robbers up the street”, McCabe said.

Moun Seth stands handcuffed in the Banteay Meanchey Provincial Court yesterday morning after he was apprehend by authorities. CPU

Seth then grabbed a 12-year-old off her bicycle, said Hor Samnath, Mongkol Borei’s deputy police chief. The girl screamed for help, scaring off the man and attracting the attention of police, who had been on alert since the first attack.

Police caught up with Seth a few hours later. They gathered together victims of the first attack, who identified Seth’s Dream 125cc motorbike, Samnath said.

During questioning, Samnath said, Seth confessed to the January 6 rape, before offering a laundry list of mitigating factors.

“The suspect admitted that he raped the girl and forced the other children to take off their clothes,” Samnath said. Seth told police he committed the crime “because he was drunk and his wife was pregnant . . . the suspect also used drugs”.

Based on the seemingly premeditated nature of the first attack and Monday’s alleged attempt, police continued questioning Seth and are looking into his history to see if the suspect could be responsible for other unsolved rapes, McCabe and Samnath said.

Samnath yesterday said that Seth was detained at the district police station, and documents to send him to Banteay Meanchey Provincial Court were being prepared. McCabe said Seth is expected in court this morning.

McCabe yesterday praised police in Banteay Meanchey’s Mongkol Borei district police for their response to the first incident, which led to Seth’s arrest.

“The arrest of this defendant is a testament to the work of the [local] police department,” he said. “The attacks were planned and it is unlikely they would have stopped.”

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/alleged-child-rapist-caught

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Guards face court over girl’s rape

Wed, 28 January 2015

Buth Reaksmey Kongkea

Two security guards were tried at Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday in the alleged rape and illegal detention of an 11-year-old girl in Daun Penh district’s Phsar Thmey II commune in July last year.

Presiding judge Kor Vandy said that Norng Vichetr, 46, and Chhory Bunthoeun, 35, stand accused of holding the girl for a week in a rental room in Phsar Thmey II, but only Vichetr is on trial for rape.

“They saw the victim sitting alone in a nearby shop that they guarded in Daun Penh district. They then brought her to stay at their rental room [Vichetr’s room],” Vandy said.

Vichetr was charged with illegal detention of a human being and rape with aggravating circumstances, while Bunthoeun was charged with being an accomplice in both. They were arrested not long after the girl escaped and told her mother, who worked as a dishwasher at a restaurant in Teuk Thla commune.

Though a doctor’s examination confirmed a sexual assault had taken place, both men strenuously denied the accusation yesterday.

Vichetr said he brought her to his room because he thought she was lost, but he didn’t rape her.

A verdict is expected on February 10.