A top Cambodian general and security aide to former leader Hun Sen denied on Thursday involvement in a 1997 grenade attack that killed 16 people, as a French court prepares to put him on trial.
Hing Bun Heang and Huy Piseth, another senior military officer, will be prosecuted in absentia by a Paris criminal court next week, accused of organising the attack in Phnom Penh, which also wounded 150 people including a US citizen.
The attack targeted Sam Rainsy, a leading figure in Cambodia’s opposition, who has lived in self-imposed exile since 2015 to avoid prosecution at home.
Hing Bun Heang, now 68, was head of Hun Sen’s bodyguard unit at the time but denied any involvement in the attack.
“I know nothing about the case,” Hing Bun Heang, who is also a deputy commander of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces, told AFP.
“I am not worried at all because I am not involved.”
Hing Bun Heang is accused of hiring the attackers, while Huy Piseth is alleged to have helped facilitate their escape after throwing the grenades. Both face charges of complicity in murder.
“I am not involved, I did not participate, I do not know about it,” Hing Bun Heang told AFP.
“I have explained this many times. It has nothing to do with me.”
Hun Sen ruled Cambodia with an iron fist for nearly four decades before handing power to his son, current Prime Minister Hun Manet, in 2023.
Critics accused him during his time in power of using intimidation and legal tactics to wipe out all opposition to his rule. Sam Rainsy has been a particular focus for his anger.
Sam Rainsy, who is a French citizen, initially filed his complaint in Paris in 2000 but dropped it after returning to Cambodia in 2006.
His continued activism against Hun Sen’s government at the time led to further self-exile in France and he obtained a new inquiry into the grenade attack in 2012.
– US ban –
Hing Bun Heang dared Sam Rainsy to come and challenge him in a Cambodian court.
“Come and sue me in Cambodia,” he said, calling him “a deranged politician”.
He insisted he was not worried about any guilty verdict issued by the French court.
“There is no reason for me to worry about it, it is up to them to open the trial, it is up to them to accuse (me), it is their story,” he said.
A French judge ruled in 2022 that Hing Bun Heang and Huy Piseth should stand trial, based on the “unanimous” conclusions of inquiries by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, the United Nations and Human Rights Watch.
Nobody has been prosecuted in Cambodia over the attack.
Hing Bun Heang said he had not been asked by the French court to send a lawyer to defend him, nor had he received any warrant from the court.
Am Sam Ath, operations director of local rights group Licadho, said Cambodian authorities had raised “complications” in the case.
“The trial in France is something that would also seek justice for the victims in the grenade attack,” he said.
Both Hing Bun Heang and Huy Piseth are close to Hun Sen and often accompany the former leader to events.
The United States imposed sanctions on Hing Bun Heang in 2018, accusing him of using force to menace opponents for decades.
Hing Bun Heang, the first member of Hun Sen’s inner circle to be blacklisted by Washington, was accused of being “the leader of an entity involved in serious human rights abuse”.
Huy Piseth is currently a secretary of state at the Ministry of National Defence and deputy chief of staff to Hun Manet.
