A suspected drug trafficker walked out of a police station in handcuffs, climbed on a waiting motorbike and escaped thanks to a moment’s inattention by police guarding him yesterday.

Kampong Speu provincial police’s anti-drug chief Tim Leng described how Loa Puthika, 23, got away: “After he was questioned by an investigative judge upstairs, our police brought him downstairs while the court prepared to put him in pre-trial detention.

He waited downstairs close to the police, but our police were careless for just a moment, and as the entrance of the court was open, he just ran away.”

He went on: “There was a motorbike waiting outside. He just got out of the entrance of the court with handcuffs and jumped on the motorbike … We tried to look for the motorbike to follow it, but he already fled.”

Leng said Puthika had been arrested in Kampong Speu’s Chbar Mon town based on a court warrant, and was allegedly also found to be in possession of drugs at the time of the arrest.

Ouch Heang, Chbar Mon district police chief, said he had received new orders from provincial police to arrest the suspect.