The warrant calls for the immediate arrest of Sam Rainsy, a development opposition lawmaker Eng Chhai Eang called “ridiculous” and unconstitutional-due to Sam Rainsy’s parliamentary immunity.
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Phnom Penh Municipal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Sam Rainsy, the leader of Cambodia’s opposition party.
The opposition leader is now on a trip to Japan and South Korea.
“Secondly, to order all public forces to search for and arrest and bring the convict, Sam Rainsy, to have his sentence implemented at the prison of the Ministry of Interior”, the warrant said. In a speech, Rainsy had accused Namhong of colluding with the Khmer Rouge while he was a prisoner of the radical group.
Rainsy went into exile in 2009 to avoid a conviction for the removal of border posts, though his four-year exile ultimately spared him the defamation sentence as well.
Rainsy appealed the verdict in 2013 but lost. According to Friday’s arrest warrant, Mr. Namhong’s lawyer, Kar Savuth, requested that the verdict be enforced.
“Your family history could not be compared with Aung San Suu Kyi’s because hers was the patriot and yours was the traitor”, he said, explaining that Sam Rainsy’s father, Sam Sary, was named as “the traitor” by the government of the Sangkum Reastr Niyum regime, or the People’s Socialist Community, led by then-prince Norodom Sihanouk in the 1950s. “It is not about exercising the court’s verdict because Sam Rainsy has been living freely (in Cambodia) for almost three years”, he said.
Rainsy, who returned from exile ahead of 2013 elections after receiving royal pardon, claims the convictions are politically motivated.
“It’s nothing shocking or harmful, but it’s just a amusing thing, because when we looked into the arrest warrant, it involves a case back in 2008, so why didn’t they arrest him when Sam Rainsy was getting out of the airplane?”
“They want to show their power”, he said. While Cambodia is formally democratic, the government is notorious for intimidating opponents.
On Thursday, in a live address on Facebook, Hun Sen warned Rainsy that he faced legal action over other allegedly defamatory comments he made about the ruling Cambodian People’s Party wanting to cancel upcoming local and national elections for fear of losing, according to The Cambodia Daily.
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Relations between the government and the opposition deteriorated earlier this year after the opposition tried to exploit a volatile issue by accusing neighboring Vietnam, with which Hun Sen’s government maintains good relations, of land encroachment.
