A prison guard at Phnom Penh’s Police Judiciare Prison was handed a sentence of three years in prison on Friday for drug trafficking.

Choub Seang, 48, a former chief of PJ Prison’s building A, was judged to have already served 10 months of his sentence since his arrest in October last year.

He was convicted along with 53-year-old prisoner Chea Savuth at Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Friday.

Chea Savuth will spend an additional four year in jail for the crime, on top of a previous 10-year prison sentence for drug trafficking, said judge Oeung Seang yesterday.

At a trial earlier this month, it was alleged the former prison block chief accepted bribes from prisoners and in turn allowed them to smuggle drugs into the facility.

Chea Savuth was said to have paid Choub Seang in order to allow a cook for the prisoner’s family to enter the facility and deliver him a number of drugs – hidden within packets of dried fish and other foods.

Choub Seang, who could not be reached yesterday, proclaimed at the trial that he was “an innocent person”.

Judge Oeung Seang added yesterday that charges against Keo Khemmaly, 45, a female at prisoner PJ, had been dropped.