Friday, 6 February 2009

NRP to press charges against student group following party purge

ROYALIST HOPES
Funcinpec and the Norodom Ranariddh Party agreed Monday to unite for May's district and provincial council elections, with representatives from both parties hoping a united royalist front can regain votes lost at last July's national election.


The Phnom Penh Post

Wednesday, 04 February 2009
Meas SokChea

17 officials expelled from party for their links to breakaway faction accused of illegal trespassing and destruction of property.

THE Norodom Ranariddh Party will press charges against 17 officials ousted by the party Saturday, accusing them of destroying property and provoking turmoil at the party's headquarters in Tuol Kork district.

"Our party is preparing to lodge complaints," said NRP Secretary General You Hockry. "The complaints refer to people who entered the property illegally and destroyed party property."

He added that complaints will be lodged with the Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Interior and the Cambodian Bar Association.

"We will file a complaint to the Ministry of Defence about staff of the ministry who came to provoke us illegally, and we will lodge them with the Bar Association about [ousted official] Meas Sokun because she is a lawyer and she also acted illegally," he said.

Following the resignation of former party president Prince Norodom Ranariddh last October, the NRP has split between the party mainstream and a splinter group linked to the Democratic Front of Khmer Students and Intellectuals.

On Saturday, the NRP central committee expelled 17 officials linked to the student group, which had sought to wrest control of the party from senior officials.

But former NRP spokesman Suth Dina, who was among those ousted, said that according to the law, the complaints would not stand. "I would like to emphasise that in a legal sense, You Hockry's group has the right to lodge complaints, but they will not succeed" he said.

"What You Hockry is doing is to merely relieve his group's anger," he added.

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