The Supreme Court yesterday heard the final appeals of three family members – husband, wife and son – convicted of the grisly 2008 murder of Ek Heng, provincial fisheries administration chief in Kampong Thom.

Mach Sithol, 57, who had worked for Heng as the chief of finance at the fisheries administration; her husband, Chhum Sothea, 58, a former officer at the province’s forestry administration; and their son Chhum Sothearith, 33, a former employee of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in Phnom Penh, were convicted in 2010 of the murder of the 37-year-old fisheries chief and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

The sentence was upheld in 2011 by the Court of Appeal.

Judge Som Sereyvuth said the fisheries chief had been found hacked to death in his office in December 2008, and that the murder stemmed in part from a dispute over the use of funds for a project. The appellants have denied the charges.

The Supreme Court will deliver its decision on February 22.

 

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