Sam Rainsy Sentenced to 12 More Years Over Web Map

Kong Sothanarith, VOA Khmer
Phnom Penh Thursday, 23 September 2010

“Only a political compromise can bring him back.”

Opposition leader Sam Rainsy was sentenced to 12 years in jail Thursday, on forgery and disinformation charges for publishing a map on his party's website alleging Vietnamese border encroachment.

Those 12 years are added to a two-year sentence Sam Rainsy is already facing for uprooting markers along the Vietnamese border last year. He also received a fine of 65 million riel, more than $15,000—5 million riel to the court and 60 million riel to the government as reparation.

Phnom Penh Municipal Court judge Ke Sakhan said at the conclusion of Sam Rainsy's trial in August he had deemed the map to be false and posted as an act to hurt the government's image.

Sam Rainsy has been in exile since the first set of charges were levied against him last October, and the map, he said, was meant to verify border claims he had made at the time.

Sam Rainsy's lawyer, Kong Bora, called the verdict a “grave injustice,” and said the judgement had “followed the orders of an individual who is currently in power.”
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