Two men were charged with premeditated murder yesterday at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court in connection with the killing of a construction supervisor – allegedly disguised to look like an accident – at the site where the pair worked.

Huon Nguon, deputy police chief overseeing crime in Daun Penh district, identified the suspects as Choem Sophana, 29, who was arrested on Sunday, and Chhoeun Sokthim, 32, arrested the next day. Both worked installing tile floors at the Easton International Apartment construction site under victim Thon Chanthoeun, 33.

Initially, there were claims that Chanthoeun had died in a fall from the fifth-floor. However, Nguon said that “experts found bruising on the victim’s neck, indicating that the victim was killed by strangulation before throwing the body off the building.”

The suspects confessed to having persuaded Chanthoeun to drink rice wine with them on Friday, then took him to the fifth floor, where they strangled and robbed him, Nguon said.

The next morning, the suspects allegedly threw the body to the ground, with Sophana feigning aid by taking him to Calmette Hospital in a tuk-tuk.