Local pol caught in the crossfire
IN APRIL this year, Srok commune chief Seang Chet got a call from his district superior asking him to come to the Kampong Siem district office to sort out a dispute – sewage was running through someone else’s yard, he was told, according to his wife.
It was just the kind of neighbourhood problem the father of five was good at handling. Since being elected in 2012, the Sam Rainsy Party member had won the admiration and respect of even some local CPP supporters, who, though wishing not to be named, were among villagers who described the local official as “friendly” and “generous”.
The problem for Chet, however, was there was no local dispute waiting at the nearby office.
Instead, the commune chief found himself confronted by officials from the A n t i - C o r r u p t i o n Un i t (ACU).
“The next time I saw him was [at the ACU] in Phnom Penh,” his wife Sreng Sokhoeun recalled at the family’s home last month.
“He told me to take care of the children. That was the last thing he said.”
Chet has now spent almost six months in detention for allegedly offering a $500 bribe to the family of hairdresser Khom Chandaraty – the purported mistress of CNRP deputy president Kem Sokha – to lie about her alleged affair with the opposition leader.
On Tuesday this week, Chet burst into tears when meeting with opposition officials at Phnom Penh’s Prey Sar prison, CONTINUED
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