The Supreme Court has postponed its hearing into a case involving opposition leader Sam Rainsy following requests from his lawyer, a court official said.

Tho Navy, a clerk at the Supreme Court, said that the hearing will be postponed for about a week, but was not aware of the exact date.

“It has been delayed already, because [the lawyer] has a personal issue to deal with. Maybe it will be delayed until the last week of February,” Tho Navy said yesterday.

The court is set to hear the final appeal in a case involving the Sam Rainsy Party president, who was convicted in January 2010 of uprooting temporary border markers on the Vietnamese frontier and sentenced to two years jail, a ruling that was upheld on appeal in October.

In a separate case, Sam Rainsy, now living in self-exile abroad, was sentenced in September to 10 years in prison on charges of disinformation and falsifying public documents.

When contacted yesterday, Sam Rainsy’s lawyer Choung Choungy said the Supreme Court had not yet responded officially to his request for a postponement.