Anti-Corruption Unit president Om Yentieng said yesterday that Kandal Provincial Court officials are about to finish their corruption investigation into a former judge and will send the case to trial next month.

Huot Heang was arrested by ACU officials in January this year at his office during a meeting with another judge and a land cadastral official, the plaintiff in a case about to go to court.

Huot Heang allegedly extorted a US$5,000 bribe from the land cadastral official, threatening him with a lawsuit if he didn’t cough up the cash.

“He threatened the victim that if he did not have $5,000 for him, he would charge [him] and he [the victim] would pay more than that amount of money if he went to the Appeal or Supreme Court,” the ACU president said.

“Kandal Provincial Court will completely end its investigation in the next three to four days and send [the case] to trial,” Om Yentieng told the Post.

The Anti-Corruption tsar said that Huot Heang had already been in pre-trial detention for nearly six months, which is why he was encouraging the court to set a date.

Om Yentieng said when the judge was arrested with the $5,000, ACU officials also found $6,000 stuffed in his pocket but didn’t have enough evidence to pin anything on him in relation to that sum.

Sin Vireak, Kandal Provincial Court judge, could not be reached for comment.

To contact the reporter on this story: Chhay Channyda at [email protected]