The only suspect in 2012 slaying of Hang Serei Oudom, a Cambodian environmental journalist, has been acquitted of murder by a court in Cambodia, reports the AFP.
Captain An Bunheng, a military police officer, was arrested along with his wife last year after Oudom was found axed to death and stuff in the trunk of his own car. Bunheng lived at a karaoke bar where Oudom was last seen.
Oudom had been investigating the role of military police in illegal logging and timber smuggling. His death came only five months after prominent environmentalist Chut Wutty was shot dead when accompanying two journalists to an illegal logging site.
Over the past twenty years Cambodia has lost more than a fifth of its forests. Old-growth forest cover declined by three-fifths.
Illegal logging of precious hardwoods is rampant in the country’s forest reserves and protected areas.
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Cambodia drops case of murdered forest activist, Chut Wutty
(10/08/2012) An investigation into the mysterious death of Cambodian forest activist, Chut Wutty, has been dismissed by the courts, which critics allege is apart of an ongoing cover up. The court decided that since the suspect in Wutty’s death, In Rattana, was also dead there was no need to proceed. Chut Witty was shot to death while escorting two journalists to a logging site run by Timbergreen. Wutty, whose death made international news, was a prominent activist against illegal logging in Cambodia.
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(09/27/2012) Two weeks after an environmental journalist was found murdered in the trunk of his car, another journalist has been brutally attacked in Cambodia. Ek Sokunthy with the local paper Ta Prum says he was beaten in his home by three assailants by a pistol and a stick. The attack follows swiftly after the high-profile murder of 44-year-old forest journalist Hang Serei Oudom.
Environmental journalist investigating illegal logging murdered in Cambodia
(09/13/2012) Less than five months after high-profile forest activist, Chut Wutty, was killed in Cambodia, an environmental journalist, Hang Serei Oudom, has been found slain in the trunk of his car, possibly murdered with an ax, reports the AFP. Oudum, who worked at the local paper Vorakchun Khmer Daily, was known for writing stories on epidemic of illegal logging in Cambodia, often linking the crime to business people and politicians. The car and body were found in a cashew nut plantation in Ratanakiri province, an area rife with logging.