Kandal provincial police sent a suspected drug addict to the provincial court on Tuesday afternoon after he allegedly threw his three-month-old nephew into a muddy ditch in Siem Reap village, in Kandal Stung district’s Siem Reap commune, earlier the same day.

Lak Mengthy, the head of the provincial police’s minor crime bureau, told The Post on Tuesday that the 27-year-old suspect had been sent to the Kandal provincial court the same afternoon.

In his police report sent to the court, Mengthy said the suspect had committed an act of deliberate violence, but it was up to the court to decide what, if anything, to charge him with.

“According to the Kandal Stung district police chief’s report and the suspect’s confession, he was addicted to drugs,” he said.

Kandal Stung district police chief Men Chanrith said the victim’s family and the suspect’s parents told him that the suspect’s home was a short distance from the victim’s.

He said the victim’s mother had put her son in a hammock under the house on Tuesday afternoon so he could go to sleep.

While the victim was sleeping, the suspect arrived, grabbed the child from the hammock and threw him violently into a muddy irrigation ditch, Chanrith said.

Shortly afterwards, he said, the victim’s family filed a complaint at the Siem Reap commune police station requesting the police to arrest the suspect.

Chanrith said the victim was taken to Kantha Bopha Children’s Hospital in Phnom Penh for a check-up but the doctor there said the boy had not suffered any life-threatening injuries or permanent damage.

The suspect’s parents told Chanrith that their son was a drug addict, but asked the police not to send him to a drug rehabilitation centre.

They said that if he was sent there, their son would not change his ways and would only become more addicted. The parents asked the police to take action in line with the law.

“This person was highly addicted to drugs and that’s why he treated his nephew like this. My police officers will follow legal procedures,” Chanrith said.