The Phnom Penh Court of Appeal denied a motion filed by the Paris Peace Agreement (PPA) and political activists to hear their cases together. Instead, it upheld the decision by a lower court to hear them separately, one of the lawyers said.
Last December, Phnom Penh Municipal Court ruled that the hearing of the cases will be split into five as there were “many defendants” and the issues were “complicated”, thus making it difficult to examine the evidence.
The police arrested 37 defendants, including prominent PPA activist Srun Srorn, and charged them for incitement in July after allegedly organizing a live broadcast on the Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam Development Triangle Area (CLV-DTA) on Facebook. They allegedly accused Cambodian leaders of ceding territories of four northern provinces to Vietnam.
Defense lawyer Son Chumchuon expressed disappointment at the decision made by the Court of Appeal, noting that he will discuss with his clients whether to appeal the verdict to the Supreme Court.
According to him, the Court of Appeal cited Article 385 of the Criminal Procedure Code which states that an appeal against interlocutory judgement before sentencing is admissible if it is filed immediately.
“We cannot accept the reason given by the Appeal Court, which claimed that the defendants’ right to appeal was invalidated [due to the delay],” he said, sharing that the appeal was filed a week after the lower court verdict.
“But we have thought of a reinvestigation verdict unless the judge orders the competent authority to find more evidence.”
“We can’t accept the [decision to] split the hearing as the case will be prolonged and [this] affects the defendants’ rights to a fair trial,” he added.
Rights group Adhoc senior investigator Yi Soksan said the Court of Appeal’s decision is seemingly politically-motivated rather than based on facts.
“I think the court should not delay the trial or split the hearings,” Soksan said.
In previous cases, the court did not split the hearing, he observed, referring to the mass trial and conviction of more than 40 defendants, who were political activists and members of the now-defunct Cambodia National Rescue Party, in 2022.
Meanwhile, local NGO rights group Licadho said since July last year, over 100 people have been caught, with more than 60 charged and imprisoned for protesting on social media, planning to assemble, or expressing their views on the CLV-DTA.
In September, Cambodia announced its withdrawal from the CLV development triangle deal, which spanned 20 years, following protests and public criticism online.
The regional development agreement was established by the three government heads in 1999 for socio-economic development, economic cooperation and closer relationships.
