The Court of Appeal yesterday upheld the guilty verdict of a TV journalist convicted of extortion, but suspended three years of his five-year sentence.

The suspect, Thong Hokly, was not in court when judge Samrith Sophal decided to “uphold the case and order, and continue detaining the suspect”. Hokly’s appeal hearing, which he also did not attend, was on June 7.

Hokly has been in jail since his arrest by the Anti-Corruption Unit in September 2014 for extorting money from a provincial governor and an unnamed sand dredger in Kampot’s Andong Khmer commune to stop broadcasting a story on the sand dredging.

According to lower court transcripts, Hokly admitted that he had received 1.6 million riel (about $400).