A man was arrested in Kampong Thom’s Baray district on Saturday after three days spent on the lam after allegedly killing his father with a machete, police said yesterday.

Ke Khanara, Kampong Thom provincial deputy police chief, said Met Mi, 21, had been charged with murder, and was in pretrial detention.

“We hunted the suspect for three days after the suspect killed his father and ran into the forest near the village. He could not do anything about it since he obviously committed the murder,” Khanara said.

Et Marivan, Baray district penal police director, said that Mi was a reputed drug addict, and had borrowed a motorbike from his father, Ki Morn, 51, to go to a dancehall on the day of the killing. When he returned, the bike’s front end was damaged, and his father began shouting at him. Mi then allegedly slashed him in the chest with a machete before fleeing into the nearby forest.

His brother alerted authorities after Mi reached out to him for assistance.