Journalist's Appeal Rejected in Cambodia

(Cambodia-AP, August 31, 2005) -- A Cambodian court on Wednesday rejected an appeal by a reporter convicted of defaming the foreign minister in articles implicating him in prisoners' deaths during the Khmer Rouge's genocidal rule.

The Supreme Court upheld a lower court's conviction of reporter Kay Kimsong of The Cambodia Daily, an English-language newspaper. It fined him $7,500.

Kay Kimsong, along with two Americans working for the newspaper, were sued over two articles published in early 2001 that said Foreign Minister Hor Namhong had played an active part in running a Phnom Penh prison camp during the Khmer Rouge's brutal 1975-79 reign.

The communist Khmer Rouge set up the prison camp for intellectuals, and for overseas Cambodians who had returned home, believing they would be helping rebuild their country after a bitter civil war.

The articles alleged that people were taken from the camp, then tortured and executed. During Khmer Rouge rule, an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians died from starvation, disease, overwork and execution.

Hor Namhong said in a letter published in the newspaper in 2001 that he had been a prisoner at the camp and was treated like one. In his appeal, Kay Kimsong said he hadn't received a fair trial and was treated differently from his foreign colleagues, and he noted the newspaper had published a clarification as well as the letter from Hor Namhong.

Kay Kimsong said a Supreme Court judge, Khim Pon, issued the ruling Wednesday, but declined to comment further. The judge could not be reached for comment.

The newspaper's publisher, Bernard Krisher, said he believed Kay Kimsong was only "a minor figure" in the case and placed responsibility for the story on the two Americans, who no longer work for the daily.

"So I'm rather puzzled why he (Kay Kimsong) is the victim and not the two people who decided to publish the story. I'm puzzled why. ... The Cambodia Daily itself was not the target," Krisher said by phone from Tokyo, where he is staying.

Bun Sarith, an aide to Hor Namhong, declined to comment Wednesday, saying he didn't know about the court's ruling.

(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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