Hundreds of mourners gathered for the funeral yesterday of a leading Cambodian political commentator gunned down in broad daylight, a killing that has sent fear rippling through civil society.
Kem Ley, a political analyst and pro-democracy campaigner, was shot dead on Sunday as he drank coffee at a convenience store attached to a petrol station in the capital Phnom Penh.
The slaying of the 46-year-old comes as tensions boil between premier Hun Sen and the country’s political opposition, who accuse the strongman ruler of tying them up in spurious legal cases and deploying thugs to intimidate them.
Buddhist monks led a large crowd, many wearing black and white, at a temple in Phnom Penh where Kem Ley’s body was laid out, covered by Cambodia’s national flag and strewn with flowers.
One distressed mourner cut his arm with a razor blade in front of the victim’s body, according to an AFP journalist at the scene, in an act of protest at the murder of the respected analyst.
Several women carrying joss sticks wept over the body, their hands clasped together in prayer.
A man who identified himself as Chuob Samlab — an unlikely Khmer name which translates as “meet to kill” — was later taken to a Phnom Penh court amid tight security after allegedly confessing to shooting Kem Ley over an unpaid debt.
But the suspect’s motive as well as his name have been questioned by activists in a country where the rule of law is threadbare and criticism of powerful figures carries great risk.
Authorities suspect he is using an alias but insist they have the right man.
“No parents would give their kid that name,” General Khieu Sopheak, spokesman for the ministry of interior, said.
But based on CCTV footage he is “the real killer”, he added.
The brazen murder has rattled the activist community in the capital, where Kem Ley’s advocacy group — ‘Khmer for Khmer’ — did much of its work in support of land and worker rights as well as grassroots democracy.
“I always worry for my safety...but the murder of Kem Ley deepens our fear now,” Am Sam Ath, of rights group Licadho, said.
“But even with the fear I will continue my work. We already know what may happen to us,” he said.
Another civil society worker said it was “crucial” that justice is served.
“However all too often in Cambodia we see farcical judicial proceedings where the real perpetrators enjoy impunity,” Chak Sopheap, of the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights, said, adding she hoped activists “will not be cowed by his murder.” A letter signed by 70 civil society groups expressed “outrage” at the brutal murder and called for a full, transparent police probe.
Moving quickly to limit the fallout of the killing, Prime Minister Hun Sen described the murder as “a heinous act” and ordered authorities to bring anyone behind Kem Ley’s murder to book.
“I hope that other politicians will not politicise this case to incite (people), that would lead the nation into chaos,” he added.
Kem Ley advocated a new era of clean politics in a notoriously corrupt nation which is expected to hold a general election in 2018.
Last week he gave a lengthy radio interview welcoming a report into Hun Sen’s family fortune, saying it gave a clear idea of how Cambodia’s political elite have become rich during his 31-year rule.
The election in two years is seen as a major test of the wily Hun Sen, a former army commander who defected from the Khmer Rouge, in a country with a young population wearied by corruption and the stifling of democracy.