A husband and wife from Kandal’s Sa’ang district were charged with murder yesterday after they allegedly killed the woman’s lover.

Sa’ang district police chief Seng Socheat said the suspects Khem Kheng, 29, and Chab Sokchoeun, 26, had a child together.

Socheat said that the pair confessed to killing the victim, Lai Lin, 27, because Kheng became jealous when Lin and Kheng’s wife began an affair last month and slept together twice. Kheng confessed that after witnessing Lin embracing and kissing Sokchoeun, he began to plot his rival’s death.

On June 23, Kheng allegedly instructed his wife to call the victim to their house and lay on the bed, waiting for him. When Lin arrived, Kheng allegedly attacked him with a hoe until he fell unconscious. He then grabbed a plastic tarpaulin, tightened it around the victim’s throat and strangled him to death.

The pair then allegedly dumped Lin’s body in a pond just 200 metres from their home. The floating body was discovered by a cattle herder nine days later, on July 2. Experts determined Lin had suffered strangulation, as well as cuts to the left ear, waist and head.

Kandal Provincial Court prosecutor Lem Sokunthea said the couple is now behind bars on charges of premeditated murder under Article 200 of the Criminal Code, which carries a sentence of life imprisonment.