HENG POV

The Court of Appeal is set to rule on the latest case involving former Phnom Penh police chief Heng Pov today, after prosecutors appealed his recent three-month sentence for "illegal human detention". Heng Pov, who while in power was a much-feared police boss, is already serving 92 years in prison for crimes including murder, extortion and kidnapping. He received an 18-year prison sentence for the 2003 murder of Municipal Court Judge Sok Sethamony. The prosecutors in the detention case argued that the latest sentence was too light for what was essentially a kidnapping. Judge Chuon Sunleng told the Post Thursday that Heng Pov had already served the three-month sentence. Heng Pov's defence lawyer, Kav Soupha, told the Post Thursday that an appeal should not have been made in the first place as the plaintiff in the case had withdrawn his complaint. "I wondered why the prosecutor appealed the sentence because the plaintiff himself withdrew his complaint and then the Phnom Penh Municipal Court convicted him," he said.