Arrested in September 2017, Kem Sokha was accused of wanting to overthrow the Cambodian government of Hun Sen, prime minister in power since 1985. On Friday March 3, the 69-year-old opposition leader was sentenced to 27 years from prison ” for collusion with foreigners in Cambodia and elsewhere”Judge Koy Sao told the Phnom Penh court.
After the verdict, Kem Sokha was immediately taken from the courtroom to his home, where he will be under house arrest and prohibited from meeting anyone except his family members. He has one month to appeal the conviction and jail term, Ang Udom, one of his lawyers, told reporters.
An opposition figure and co-founder of the now dissolved National Salvation Party of Cambodia (PSNC), Kem Sokha has always contested the charges. The court also stripped him of his right to vote and banned him from standing for political office, which prevents him from contesting the July 23 national election.
A dragging trial
“I cannot accept this judgment”Kem Sokha supporter Chea Samuon told Agence France-Presse (AFP) outside the courtroom. “It’s very unfair to him and to the people. He’s not guilty, it’s political pressure.”.
The Kem Sohka trial illustrated the “frightening problem of state control over the judicial system in the country”said the executive director of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, Chak Sopheap.
The United States reacted quickly through the voice of its ambassador to Cambodia, present in court. Kem Sokha’s trial and conviction are based on a “fabricated conspiracy” and constitute a ” miscarriage of justice “, W. Patrick Murphy told reporters. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who met with Kem Sokha in Phnom Penh in August, said to himself ” disappointed “ by the length of the legal proceedings “politically motivated”. Kem Sokha’s trial has dragged on, partly due to coronavirus restrictions which caused hearings to be postponed for almost two years, until the resumption in January 2022.
Decline in individual freedoms
Critics say Hun Sen – Asia’s longest-serving leader – has rolled back democratic freedoms, and Mr Sokha’s sentencing is part of the regime’s crackdown on dissenting voices, including some had to flee the kingdom for fear of being arrested and prosecuted. Last year, dozens of opponents, some linked to the PSNC, such as its former leader Sam Rainsy, who has lived in exile in France since 2015, were sentenced to prison terms in two mass trials denounced by the International community.
The PSNC had made a breakthrough in the 2013 elections, winning 55 seats out of 123, before being dissolved four years later by the country’s Supreme Court. In the ballot that followed, in 2018, Hun Sen’s party won all the seats in Parliament, results hotly contested.
In the absence of visible opposition, the Cambodian leader, a former Khmer Rouge fighter who dissented from the movement, who rose through the ranks during the occupation of Cambodia by Vietnam, is heading at 70 for another landslide victory in the legislative elections. of July.
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