A 24-year-old man was sentenced to life in prison by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday for strangling a 12-year-old girl in 2013 in order to steal her gold earrings worth just $20.

Presiding judge Leang Samnath also ordered defendant Khim Bora, who was unemployed, to pay 30 million riel, about $7,500, in compensation to the family of victim Kang Botum Botey, whose body he disposed of in a pond in Phnom Penh’s Por Sen Chey district.

Lieutenant Colonel Yim Sarann, chief of Por Sen Chey district police, said the victim disappeared from her house on December 2, 2013, and her body was found by villagers the next day.

The victim’s father, Kim Yorn, 60, said outside the courtroom yesterday that he found the decision satisfactory.

“I think that the court’s decision was right, and was just for my daughter,” he said.

Bora, however, pledged to appeal the verdict.

“I think that this court’s conviction is very heavy for me, and I cannot accept it. I will appeal it to the Appeal Court soon,” he said.