A teenager might never walk again after five members of a gang slashed his Achilles tendon with a butcher’s cleaver in the capital’s Tuol Kork district last Wednesday, police said yesterday.

The five gangsters, all high school students, slashed their 18-year-old victim’s ankle as he lay prostrate on the road after crashing into a tuk-tuk trying to escape them, deputy municipal police chief Colonel Chuon Narin said.

“They were very cruel and inhumane,” he said.

“They caught the victim and took a cleaver to cut him. This has caused him serious injury and has handicapped him.”

Sok Sambath, 18; Phul Thearith, 17; Dy Tithsopheareak, 17; Kong Niroan, 16; and another unnamed 17-year-old were arrested on Friday and sent to Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday to be charged over the attack.

“We’re still seeking the arrest of another suspect involved in the attack. We believe he has fled abroad,” Narin said.

Hang Sarith, a district police officer, said the incident occurred after the suspects’ gang of 13 riders tried to hit the victim – a student – and two of his friends with their motobikes near the Mondial Center.

The victims verbally abused their attackers before fleeing on two motorbikes, Sarith said, which prompted six of the gang members to chase them.

“The victim’s motorbike crashed into a tuk-tuk and he fell on the road. One of the suspects took a cleaver and cut him. They all then fled,” he said.

“The victim was later rescued by police, and was immediately sent to the hospital for treatment,” he added.

 

To contact the reporter on this story: Buth Reaksmey Kongkea at [email protected]