Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Thais say soldiers burned teen post-mortem

Tuesday, 29 September 2009
By Thet Sambath
The Phnom Penh Post

Thai military officers have acknowledged their soldiers burned the body of a 16-year-old Cambodian boy suspected of illegal logging, but insist they only did so after he was dead, the deputy chief of the Thailand-Cambodia relations office at the Poipet border crossing said Monday.
Leu Chandara said the officers made the admission during a meeting last week, but Cambodian officials are not buying Thailand’s version of events. “We don’t believe them and we are going to conduct our own investigation,” he said. If the story were true, he added, it would raise questions about the soldiers’ motives for disposing of the body without first consulting the Cambodian government.
“They said they did not burn the teenager alive, but why did they dare to burn his body without informing Cambodian authorities?” he said. “What they are doing is trying to hide their bad actions.”

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