Seventeen young people were charged by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court and released on bail yesterday after they were caught allegedly falsifying documents while taking a Korean language test administered as a precursor to working in South Korea, police said.

Lieutenant Colonel Ly Sok Kheang, a police officer, said the 17 – 15 of whom were men – were taking the exam on behalf of other people who hoped to secure employment in Korea.

“They were charged by the municipal court’s prosecutors with faking documents.

But they were put under the court’s supervision, and were allowed to stay outside of detention temporarily on bail,” Sok Kheang said yesterday afternoon.

“They now have been released, and returned back their homes.”

The youths were arrested on June 27 by the examination committee of the Ministry of Labour, in collaboration with the Ministry of Interior’s penal police department in Phnom Penh.

Neither the suspects, nor municipal court vice prosecutors Meas Chanpiseth and Vong Bunvisoth, who are in charge of the case, could be reached for comment yesterday.