Two police officers who also served as private bodyguards to a wealthy businessman were charged yesterday by Phnom Penh Municipal Court with intentional violence and illicit weapons use after allegedly committing a violent motorbike robbery early on Monday morning.

Two other policemen who are at large and also worked as bodyguards for Oknha Duong Ngeab were charged in absentia and a warrant is out for their

arrest, said deputy prosecutor Ek Chheng Huoth.

Mong Samay, 27, and Yim Sophorn, 32, along with the two others, are accused of having “used a pistol to hit the victim’s brow, and firing a bullet into the ground, threatening the man, a barber, in order to force him to give them his motorbike,” said Buon Sam Ath, Por Sen Chey district police chief.

“After their shooting, our police surrounded them and arrested them immediately,” he continued, adding that two of the officers managed to escape in the melee.

The 19-year-old was seriously wounded on his forehead.