Phnom Penh Municipal Court has delivered life sentences to three people and 30-year jail terms to two more for their roles in a grenade attack in the capital’s Boeung Keng Kang III commune in September last year.

The failed assassination plot left several people injured after the explosive missed its intended target, a shop belonging to 36-year-old Ea Lyhour – the ex-boyfriend of the mastermind – and rolled into street 163 and exploded.

The mastermind, Sok Kimly, 41, and the two men contracted to kill Lyhour – Bun Pheakdey, 32, and Sak Mab, 36 – were on Friday found guilty of premeditated murder and yesterday received life sentences.

Another two – Nou Somban, 33, and Pheakdey’s girlfriend, Bou Sophea, 25 – were found guilty of being accomplices to premeditated murder and were handed 30-year terms.

Reached yesterday, Kimly’s defence lawyer Suy Sokhon – who relayed the information about the sentences – said his client maintained her innocence and would appeal.

“The case has no evidence; she was only accused by others. The suspicions are not real evidence,” Sokhon said. “There was no real evidence like a video clip or an eyewitness, so I requested the court to drop the charge against my client.”

Kimly and three other people were convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison each in June over a separate failed 2015 plot to shoot the same ex-boyfriend.

“The previous case, I have already appealed, and this case I will appeal too,” the lawyer said, adding that Lyhour had withdrawn his complaint.