Cambodia’s Splendid Courtroom on Monday heard an attraction from Candlelight Celebration Vice President Thach Setha who requested judges to topple a decrease courtroom’s fake test conviction that ended in an 18-month jail sentence.
The opposition determine informed the courtroom that the 5 unholy exams offered as proof in endmost 12 months’s trial weren’t issued by way of him.
Moreover, legal professionals for Thach Setha argued that the decrease courtroom handiest noticed photocopies of the 5 exams – now not the originals.
“A photocopy is not a check because it cannot be used to cash money, but the court and the Court of Appeal relied on the photocopy to punish my client,” one of the vital legal professionals, Chou Chou Ngy, stated nearest Monday’s listening to.
Thach Setha’s arrest within the case in January 2023 used to be revealed as a part of a months-long marketing campaign of intimidation and ultimatum in opposition to opposition leaders and activists forward of endmost 12 months’s common election.
The arrest adopted a lawsuit filed by way of a Phnom Penh pawnshop that stated Thach Setha borrowed US$20,000 in 2011 and 2012. The store is owned by way of Hay Van Rin, who is understood to be alike to the people of former High Minister Hun Sen and the ruling Cambodian Population’s Celebration, or CPP.
Thach Setha’s legal professionals stated that the debt has been nearly utterly repaid. Prosecutors have stated that the unholy exams have been a part of the attempt to pay again the loans.
Ultimate September’s conviction used to be criticized as politically progressive by way of human rights teams and celebration officers.
In December, the Splendid Courtroom uninvited a bail request by way of Thach Setha amid the attraction attempt. On Monday, the courtroom stated it will announce its choice within the attraction on Would possibly 31.
Thach Setha may be serving a three-year sentence he gained in an unrelated case in October 2023 nearest his conviction on two isolated fees of incitement. That case stemmed from a remark he made endmost 12 months concerning the historical past of the CPP.
Translated by way of Sum Sok Ry. Edited by way of Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
