Lieutenant general Sau Phan said yesterday he has submitted to France the Phnom Penh Municipal Court’s verdict convicting Nguon Soeur of masterminding the kidnapping of Phan’s son in 2011, in the hopes France will also try Soeur.

Phan said the December conviction of former national police deputy commissioner Soeur, who is now in France, should add weight to a 2011 request that France try Soeur for kidnapping Phan’s son, Sau Akno.

“I hope that this verdict will become additional evidence in a French trial of Nguon Soeur in the future,” said Phan.

Cambodia submitted a warrant for Soeur’s arrest to Interpol in 2011, but France has said it cannot hand over Soeur, who is a dual Cambodian-French citizen, unless a French court had convicted him, said Chhay Sinarith, director of the Ministry of Interior’s Internal Security Police Department.

Soeur’s lawyer, Yong Phanit, said his client had not yet appealed the Phnom Penh court’s verdict, but Thorn Borey, lawyer for convicted accomplice Suth Sophy, said his client appealed yesterday.

The French Embassy could not immediately comment on the case.

 

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