The Kampot Provincial Court yesterday opened a hearing into allegations of corruption against the police chief of Banteay Meas district, who is accused of embezzling $64,360, and his deputy.

Srom Lam, the police chief, and deputy police chief Mok Hort were detained on March 18 by the Anti-Corruption Unit on eight charges of corruption.

The charges range from skimming officers’ salaries to taking bribes from gambling syndicates and using an illegal weapon.

The hearing is scheduled to continue today.

Preap Kol, executive director at Transparency International Cambodia, yesterday said the case against Lam and Hort was symptomatic of wider institutional corruption.

Cambodia regularly ranks near the bottom of the pile in corruption indexes, although it climbed four places in this year’s Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, coming 156th out of 175 countries.