An RCAF officer was arrested yesterday for allegedly sexually assaulting a waitress in a beer garden in the capital’s Kraing Thnong commune on Sunday night.

According to a district police officer who asked not to be named, a witness had seen the official – identified as 42-year-old Heng Sambath – get up and walk towards his motorbike after drinking 12 cans of beer at Monorom Trachakchet Restaurant without paying his 112,000 riel tab (about $28).

An 18-year-old female cashier then approached Sambath to remind him of the bill, only for him to use his hand to touch her genitals “several times”.

He added that Sambath had followed the victim back into the restaurant to harass her further, only stopping when he saw she was approaching her boss, who called police.

“I do not know whether [Sambath] caused the problem because he did not pay her . . . because I only followed the victim’s complaint and listened to the witnesses,” Sen Sok district police chief Mork Hong said, adding that Sambath had been detained at the district police station for interrogation.