Man held for throwing three-month-old into muddy ditch
KANDAL provincial police sent a suspected drug addict to the provincial court on Tuesday afternoon after he allegedly threw his threemonth-old nephew into a muddy ditch in Siem Reap village, in Kandal Stung district’s Siem Reap commune, earlier the same day.
Lak Mengthy, the head of the provincial police’s minor crime bureau, told The Post on Tuesday that the 27-year-old suspect had been sent to the Kandal provincial court the same afternoon.
In his police report sent to the court, Mengthy said the suspect had committed an act of deliberate violence, but it was up to the court to decide what, if anything, to charge him with.
“According to the Kandal Stung district police chief ’s report and the suspect’s confession, he was addicted to drugs,” he said.
Kandal Stung district police chief Men Chanrith said the victim’s family and the suspect’s parents told him that the suspect’s home was a short distance from the victim’s.
He said the victim’s mother had put her son in a hammock under the house on Tuesday afternoon so he could go to sleep.
While the victim was sleepi ng, the suspect arr i ved, grabbed the child from the hammock and threw him violently into a muddy irrigation ditch, Chanrith said.
Shortly afterwards, he said, the victim’s family filed a complaint at the Siem Reap commune police station requesting the police to arrest the suspect.
Cha nr it h sa id t he v ict i m was ta ken to Kant ha Bopha Children’s Hospital in Phnom Penh for a check-up but t he doctor there said the boy had not suf fered any life-t hreatening injuries or permanent damage.
The suspect’s parents told Chanrith that their son was a drug addict, but asked the police not to send him to a drug rehabilitation centre.
They said that if he was sent t here, t hei r son would not change his ways and would only become more addicted. The parents asked the police to ta ke action in line wit h t he law.
“T h is person was h ig h ly addicted to drugs and that’s why he t reated his nephew l i ke t his. My police of f icers will follow lega l procedures,” Chanrith said.