Cambodia seeks arrest of opposition leader: lawyer

Opposition leader Sam Rainsy (Photo: AFP)

12/31/2009
Agence France-Presse

"Sam Rainsy has done nothing wrong. He just fulfiled his duty as a member of parliament" - Yim Sovann, SRP spokesman

Cambodia has issued an arrest warrant for the country's main opposition leader after he failed to show up in court to answer charges of uprooting border markings, his lawyer said Thursday.

Cambodia has issued an arrest warrant for the country's main opposition leader after he failed to show up in court to answer charges of uprooting border markings, his lawyer said Thursday.

The move came after Sam Rainsy, who was stripped of his parliamentary immunity in November, failed to appear in court on Monday on charges of damaging markers denoting the international boundary with neighbouring Vietnam.

The opposition leader is currently in Paris.

"The arrest warrant for Sam Rainsy was issued on Tuesday by Svay Rieng provincial court," Sam Rainsy's lawyer Choung Chou Ngy told AFP.

He said the opposition leader had been charged with inciting racial discrimination and intentionally damaging property when he allegedly uprooted the border markings in October saying they were illegally placed by Vietnam.

Court officials could not be reached to comment, but opposition Sam Rainsy Party spokesman Yim Sovann called the move was "a plan organised by the ruling party to intimidate and to threaten members of opposition party".

"Sam Rainsy has done nothing wrong. He just fulfiled his duty as a member of parliament," he said.

The French-educated former finance minister is the main rival to Prime Minister Hun Sen. He has promised to promote liberal democracy and human rights if elected, while promising to raise wages and fight corruption.

Cambodia and Vietnam officially began demarcating their contentious border in September 2006, in a bid to end decades of territorial disputes.

The border row has sparked virulent anti-Vietnamese sentiment in Cambodia, fuelled by resentment of Vietnam's expansion over the centuries.

The 1,270-kilometre (787-mile) border has remained essentially unmarked and vague since French colonial times, with stone markers and boundary flags having disappeared, while trees once lining it were cut down.