A Cambodia man who is a fresh police recruit was charged with murdering his 20-year-old girlfriend, he
appeared in court on Thursday, June 23 for his third and final hearing
at Phnom Penh Municipal Court, Cambodia.
The trial resumed from a postponement last December when the court
ordered a reinvestigation of the case due to a lack of evidence. Hong Kalydin, 28, was arrested and charged with
murder accompanied by torture in October 2014, a week after the body of
his girlfriend Song Davin was found floating on the Tonle Sap river. The
court heard a defence attorney witness who claimed to have seen the
victim in a nightclub two days before she was found dead.
“On the night of October 5, I went to Mekong Nightclub with my sisters
and saw five girls and one slim guy sitting inside. On October 7, a body
was found on the river. People asked me and three other guys to take
the body [out]. Then I saw it was one of the girls I had seen in the
nightclub,” said witness You Maliki, who works as a fisherman.
When the judge asked if he could identify Kalydin, Maliki said,
“No, it was not him who I saw in the nightclub.”
The prosecutor, judge and victim’s lawyer all found his account suspect
and pressed him on the details. Police stated that DNA testing revealed
no semen on the victim’s body. Presiding judge Veng Huoth said the
verdict would be announced on an unspecified date due to the complexity
of the case.
Source: Niem Chheng
