Disgraced anti-drug chief Moek Dara had an opportunistic good-for-you-good-for-me system set up with his corrupt subordinates while he was the top dog at the National Anti-Drugs Authority.

“Moek Dara had set up a 50-50 policy in his anti-drug police department. For a case of releasing a drug trafficker, it was required that 50 per cent of the money extorted from the drug traffickers go to him, and the other 50 per cent went to the police officers who had participated in the drug raid,” Court of Appeal judge Chay Chandaravann said during the continuation of Dara and Chea Leng’s drug corruption appeal hearings.

Chandaravann was examining the eighth of 25 corruption cases for which Dara and Leng have been found guilty and given life sentences.

Leng and Dara are convicted of conspiring to release two drug traffickers into rehabilitation instead of sending them to court  in exchange for bribes.

“Moek Dara and Chea Leng had also not sent the drugs confiscated to the court, and the confiscated drugs disappeared,” Chandaravann read from the lower court’s findings.

Leng and Dara continued protestations of innocence.

“The reason why I sent these suspects to the rehabilitation centre is because they were not drug traffickers, they were only drug users,” Leng pleaded.

Their appeal hearing continues on Friday.

To contact the reporter on this story: Buth Reaksmey Kongkea at [email protected]