P RINCE Norodom Ranariddh said he was prepared to take responsibility before his party

and history for his role in the Sirivudh scandal.

"All was done solely for one major goal: to save the Kingdom of Cambodia from

the danger as a state..." the first Prime Minister said on Nov 24.

He said that had he not intervened in his uncle's case, Sirivudh may have already

been dead and the situation could have ended in more bloodshed.

He described the votes by Funcinpec MPs to strip Sirivudh's parliamentary immunity

as a "unity". Sirivudh's arrest followed a National Assembly's vote of

105-0 in a closed door session on Nov 21.

Ranariddh admitted that the government and the prosecutor had earlier agreed with

the King's proposal that Sirivudh be detained "in a proper place". Without

specifying, he described the incident which left Sirivudh in a cell in T3 prison

for more than six hours was because of an "extremely urgent decision" made

by a group of "practitioners" only.