Thursday, 19 February 2009

Former Phnom Penh police commissioner Heng Pov demands to be able to pay his lawyer himself

Ka-set
By Ros Dina (and Laurent Le Gouanvic)
19-02-2009

Former chief of the municipal police of Phnom Penh Heng Pov, sentenced to more than 58 years of prison in six cases - including the murder of judge Sok Sethamony - and a suspect in three more cases, was granted on Tuesday February 17th an adjournment in his trial before the Court of Appeal of Cambodia, after claiming he was not able to pay the lawyer of his choice due to his bank account being frozen by the authorities.

Heng Pov was due to answer charges of illegal possession and use of weapons at the Appeal Court, in a case for which he had been sentenced by the Municipal Court of Phnom Penh in 2007 to spend 18 months in prison and pay two million riels. In the end, the former commissioner only spent a few minutes at the stand on Tuesday, in the cramped and crowded courtroom of the Appeal Court.

“900,000 dollars on five accounts”
After he left the courtroom, Heng Pov, who was wearing the prisoner's blue uniform, continued to plead his case in front of the journalists, denouncing an “injustice” and an “abnormality”: although according to his own admission, he owns “five bank accounts, including two international ones” on which he is reported to have almost “900,000 dollars,” the former commissioner claimed he was unable to pay the fees of his lawyer, Kao Sopha, who he chose as his defence counsel, his “medical treatment” and the “school fees” of his children.

“Every defendant in the country has the right to use their money to choose their lawyer, except for Heng Pov! Why?”, he exclaimed. “That is really strange, when I have money to pay!” The former policeman has refused to receive legal aid or be represented by a court-appointed lawyer, and demanded the right to have free access to his bank accounts, or at least, to be able to withdraw “a reasonable amount” to cover his legal costs and health expenses and his children's school fees. He did not want to give a public estimate, but his lawyer Kao Sopha assessed it to 200,000 dollars.

15,000 dollars per case
The lawyer put forward the same arguments as his client. He argued that since the latter had money and was willing to pay, there was no reason why he should not be able to represent the defendant and be paid. “As a private lawyer, I have the right to receive fees. How can people accuse me of lacking generosity? When people are poor, I am ready to represent them for free. If Heng Pov did not have any money, I would not ask him for one dollar and I would continue to represent him.” The attorney claimed he has signed with his client contracts on eight of the nine cases in which he is due for trial, for a 15,000 dollar fee each.

For both Heng Pov and his counsel, there are no longer any reasons today for his bank accounts to be frozen. The freeze had been decided at the initiative of the Ministry of Interior, after he was arrested and charged in two cases of illegal confinement and extortion, one in relation to a Korean national and the other to a Cambodian one. In the first case, the former municipal police chief was cleared. In the second, Heng Pov – first accused of participating to a kidnapping to demand a ransom of over 26,000 dollars in exchange for that person's release – was finally sentenced to three months of prison for making an arrest without warrant and not for illegal confinement or extortion. The former commissioner therefore considered that the motives for the freeze are no longer valid.

Dirty money?
Kao Sopha even went as far as making a rather daring suggestion to the Court. “If you do not want Heng Pov to get his money, you have to use another charge, like corruption for instance... Then, the Court would have the right to freeze the money. If it truly considers it is dirty money, I do not want any of it and I will continue to represent Heng Pov for free,” he declared.

The defendant then publicly claimed his innocence and stated that if he had really committed the crimes he is accused of, he would probably have made testimonies disappear and he would not have participated actively to the “crackdown launched by the prime Minister against trafficking and abduction,” an attitude which he says would have been “suicidal if [he] had been guilty.”

“I want to be shown evidence!”
“I asked the Court to make sure that everything is fair,” he explained. “The three judges present [during the February 17th hearing] are considered as patriarchs of the Cambodian judicial system. I therefore ask them to follow the principles of law in their ruling. (…) I am not asking them to believe me and consider me a good person. I only want them to trust the evidence. If there are really evidence against me, I should just be killed,” he added. He also threatened to keep refusing to answer the questions of the Court “as long as it will not respect the law.”

The date of the next hearing of the Appeal Court in this case was not made public. Arrested and imprisoned in Cambodia since December 21st 2006, Heng Pov was already sentenced by the Municipal Court in six cases to various sentences for a total duration of 58 years and 9 months of prison. He is also due to be tried in relation to two attempted homicides – one against the chief of military police Sao Sokha, the other against the head of daily Koh Santepheap, Thong Uy Pang – and an abduction in 2006, a case which has not been investigated yet according to the lawyer for the former commissioner of Phnom Penh.

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