Fri, 11 Dec 2009
DPA
Phnom Penh - Cambodia's King Norodom Sihamoni has pardoned a Thai man who was convicted earlier this week of spying. Minister of Information Khieu Kanharith, said Sivarak Chothipong would be released Monday.
Sivarak was arrested in mid-November after the authorities accused him of passing on flight details of Thailand's fugitive former premier Thaksin Shinawatra to a diplomat at the Thai embassy in Phnom Penh.
"This is a humanitarian gesture," Khieu Kanharith told the German Press Agency dpa. "For us this gesture is not to please Thailand, but for humanitarian issues, and we know that the man executed the order [given] by Bangkok."
Khieu Kanharith said the order to release Sivarak came in response to a number of requests, including from Thaksin's Puea Thai party.
"On Monday [Prime Minister] Hun Sen will meet with [Sivarak's] mother and a delegation from the Puea Thai party, and he will be given to his family," he said.
At the time of his arrest Sivarak was employed by the company that handles Cambodia's air traffic, Cambodian Air Traffic Services.
"This morning Hun Sen said if he wants to stay and work in Cambodia he is welcome," Khieu Kanharith said, adding that he doubted the release order would be seen in a favourable light by Bangkok since it was in part in response to requests by the opposition Puea Thai party.
Sivarak was arrested during a surprise visit by Thaksin, who was appointed as an economic adviser to the Cambodian government and a personal adviser to Hun Sen.
The news of those appointments riled Bangkok, and relations between the two nations plunged to their lowest point in years. Thaksin has an outstanding jail term against him in Thailand, but Cambodia rejected an extradition request filed by Bangkok during Thaksin's visit.
In the diplomatic row surrounding the former Thai premier's visit, both nations recalled their ambassadors and expelled senior embassy staff. Neither ambassador has yet returned to their post.
0 comments:
Post a Comment