Delving into an old murder

A photo in the home of Chea Mony shows the body of his brother, Chea Vichea, a labour union leader, after he was shot and killed at a newsstand on Street 51. (Photo by: Tracey Shelton)

Thursday, 22 April 2010
By James O’toole and Meas Sokchea
The Phnom Penh Post

Documentary seeks answers about the killing of union leader Chea Vichea.

CHEA Vichea spent the morning playing with his daughter, studying his Khmer-English dictionary and plucking his moustache before deciding to leave his Phnom Penh home and pick up a copy of the day’s newspaper.

“I watched him from the balcony as he left,” Chea Vichea’s wife, Chea Kimny, tells director Bradley Cox. “I got up and went to the kitchen. Suddenly, I felt like something kicked me in the chest.”

Cox arrived at the newsstand outside Chamkarmon district’s Wat Lanka just minutes after Chea Vichea was gunned down on January 22, 2004, and his footage from the scene makes for some of the most powerful moments of his new documentary, Who Killed Chea Vichea? Local police struggle to maintain order as journalists and frenzied onlookers surround the fallen labour leader, his blood spilled over a copy of that day’s Koh Santepheap newspaper.

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