Capital for bail hearing

Kem Sokha to appear in

JAILED former opposition leader Kem Sokha is slated to appear before the Appeal Court today for a bail hearing after being transported to Phnom Penh yesterday evening, according to a court official.

The official, who asked to remain anonymous, said that Sokha was being kept at PJ prison overnight ahead of the hearing.

This would be the first time that Sokha will have been seen in public since being taken away to a Tbong Khmum province prison during a midnight raid on his residence in Phnom Penh on September 3.

He has been provisionally charged with “treason” in relation to a 2013 video in which he claimed to have received foreign assistance in planning his political trajectory.

Meng Sopheary, a member of Sokha’s legal team, said the former Cambodia National Rescue Party president’s wife had informed her that Trapaing Thlong Prison Director Pin Yahn asked Sokha “to get ready for joining the hearing tomorrow”.

Sopheary added that it was standard procedure for the accused to be present at such a hearing to make a case before the presiding judge.

“They cannot make the ex- cuse that they could not bring him to the hearing due to security reasons or high cost,” he said.

Appeal Court spokesman Touch Tharith said that Sokha had been delivered a summons for the bail hearing but was unsure of when or if the jailed leader was being brought to Phnom Penh.

“Whether he will be brought here, let’s see [today]. If they send him according to the summons, he will be brought to the Appeal Court,” Tharith said.

As Sokha has languished in prison, many of the party’s lawmakers and officials have fled the country fearing intimidation and imminent arrest. The CNRP was also accused of trying to overthrow the government in a so-called colour revolution and summarily dissolved at a November Supreme Court hearing.

Additionally, 118 senior members of the party, including Sokha, have been banned from the political fray for five year, with all elected CNRP officials removed from their positions.

Observers and foreign governments have condemned the measures, publicly questioning the legitimacy of this year’s national elections in the absence of the country’s only viable opposition party.