The president of the Funcinpec party has accused the deputy president of the National Authority for Land Dispute Resolution of grabbing nearly two hectares of land from 42 families in Phnom Penh’s Russey Keo district in 2003.

In a letter to Prime Minister Hun Sen dated last Monday and received by the Post yesterday, Nhek Bun Chhay accuses Khun Haing of faking a title to the 19,575 square metres of disputed land.

“Making this land title of ownership has irregularity,” Nhek Bun Chhay says in the letter, explaining that the land title was faxed to Cambodia from France.

Last year, the Supreme Court upheld Khun Haing’s title to the land, but it did not properly investigate the title, Nhek Bun Chhay said.

Khun Haing failed to appear in the Phnom Penh Municipal Court earlier this month after being summonsed in connection with a complaint filed against him by Sao Bunrath, one of the residents whose land was allegedly grabbed.

“I lived on that land between 1995 and 2003,” Sao Bunrath said. “Khun Haing faked a land title to grab my land.”

Sao Bunrath claimed the 42 families living on the disputed territory had bought land from a friend of Khun Haing, Meas Savoeun, former deputy governor of Preah Vihear.

Soon after Meas Savoeun’s arrest and imprisonment over an unrelated matter, Khun Haing lodged a complaint with the court to take the residents’ land, Sao Bunrath said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Meas Sokchea at [email protected]