Seven people arrested for drug trafficking and distribution in 2012 stood trial at Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday.

The five men and two women were arrested last November when police in the capital’s Tuol Kork district raided the guesthouse where they were staying and seized 13 tablets of crystal methamphetamine as well as a scale for weighing drugs and other drug-related materials, said presiding judge Kim Dany.

Police believed the group had been selling drugs out of the Gold House II guesthouse for several months before the raid, Dany said.

“Gold House has been prohibited by the court from operating,” she added.

All seven of the group on trial yesterday denied the accusations against them.

“I was not a drug trafficker or distributor,” Mok Sath, 40, told the court. “The reason I came to the guesthouse was because I was trying to find my son, who was not at home…. He would escape and would always stay at this guesthouse with his friends.”  

Kong Sovannara, 24, also denied involvement in drug dealing and said he had rented a room in the guesthouse simply to stay there with his girlfriend for a week.