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| (Photo: Reuters) |
By Clothilde Le Coz
Asian Correspondent
On December 14 the Cambodian Court of Appeals decided that Mam Sonando,
the owner of the opposition radio station Beehive, will stay in prison
after it rejected a first bail request since he was sentenced to 20
years in jail in October. According to his lawyer, the decision will be reconsidered in a month.
Disappointment
Shortly before 10am on Friday, Mam Sonando was escorted by at least 5 policemen in a room where the curtains were shut to avoid cameras.
A few minutes earlier, the judge rejected his first bail request since
he had been sentenced to 20 years in jail last October. During the
hearing that lasted a bit longer than an hour, Mam
Sonando said that his health was deteriorating in prison because of the
bad conditions he had to endured and asked the judge to believe in his
honesty and good judicial record. This was echoed
by his lawyer, Sa Sovan, who said that if he were to be released on
bail, Mam Sonando would not leave the country nor speak with journalists
until his appeal is considered.
The prosecutor argued against Sonando’s release, saying the first
judgement should be enough to show Mam Sonando’s guilt. The Court stated
that he would not be released on the ground that the risks of
influencing witnesses and disrupt public order would be too high. The
judge denied him bail pursuant to articles 28, 464, 457, 504 and 609 of
the Penal Code, as already brought against him by the municipal court in
October.
At the end of the hearing, Rupert
Abbott, presenting Amnesty International told EPA that he was
“disappointed” by the result. Ou Virak, director of the Cambodian Center
for Human Rights expressed his concerns for freedom of expression in
Cambodia: “we are now facing a general attitude by the government to
continue to repress criticisms“, he said.
Political prisoner?
While Amnesty International insisted on the fact that Mam Sonando is a
“prisoner of conscience”, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in
Cambodia was more hesitant to draw conclusions in this case. During a
press conference organized in Phnom Penh in the afternoon of the
decision, Professeur Surya Subedi told journalists “this is something I
would be very careful with and would come up with a formulation which is
suitable in the context of Cambodia. There is no internationally agreed
definition of political prisoner. Some proper work is required in this
area. I will now be doing so in the future.”
However, he confided to reporters present in the room that he visited Mam Sonando in prison earlier this week and that he was “concerned from the very beginning for the situation for freedom of expression and other rights in this country“.
“I monitored his case and I have intervened with the government at the
highest level possible, expressing my serious concerns. I will continue
to monitor the situation and continue to point out the obligations of
Cambodia to the international law,” he assured.
Small victory
For the first time in the Cambodian jurisprudence history, a first-instance bail request was accepted as valid by the Court of Appeals. “So far, we are very positive for the Court is respecting the game,” said Sa Sovan. After the hearing, he was able to request that the Court of Appeals reconsider the bail.
“The fact that it will shows that there are two levels of jurisdiction
in this case. We are confident for the rest of the procedure,” he
concluded.
The judge stated that there were two main risks to releasing Sonando –
on the ground that the court showed proves of his guilt in the first
instance and the fact that he owned a the double nationality. Mam Sonando can appeal this decision.
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