National Police officials will ask the French courts to pursue kidnapping charges against Nguon Soeur, a man convicted of masterminding the 2011 plot to kidnap General Sau Phan’s son before fleeing to avoid imprisonment.

“Nguon Soeur has dual citizenship: Cambodian and French. He has committed a crime in Cambodia and has escaped to live in France,” said Lieutenant General Sok Phal, deputy national police chief.

“There has been a warrant for his arrest by a Cambodian court, and he was convicted [in absentia] by the court to 28 years, but we could not arrest him, because he has been a French citizen,” he said. He added that the complaint would be filed “soon”.

Soeur, a former police official, was convicted along with several others in the October 3, 2011, kidnapping of Phan’s son, Sau Akno.

Akno was freed weeks later after the family paid hundreds of thousands in ransom.

Soeur and his defence lawyer, Yong Phanit, could not be contacted for comment yesterday.

However, Phanit told the Post recently that the court’s ruling on Soeur’s case was unjust because the court has merely tried him using police reports and documents, and Soeur hasn’t had a chance to plead his defence.

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