PHNOM PENH: Fugitive former Khmer Rouge officer Chhouk Rin, on the run after being sentenced to life for the murders of three western backpackers, may be hiding here, making the current warrant for his arrest invalid, police said yesterday.
In an interview with Chhouk Rin broadcast yesterday morning, Radio Free Asia said he was in Phnom Penh, where medical treatment was more available, and not in the rugged jungles to the south of the country as previously thought.
But Phnom Penh Municipal police chief Heng Pov said that arresting Chhouk Rin had not been made a priority by police and in fact they could not arrest him until a new warrant valid here was issued.
“I will cooperate with the provincial police to arrest Chhouk Rin if he is here.”
Chhouk Rin exhausted his last avenue of appeal against a life sentence for the Khmer Rouge rebel 1994 train ambush which killed 13 Cambodians and led to the abduction and subsequent murders of three western backpackers.
The sentence was upheld in absentia, however, and although an arrest warrant was issued for the southern provinces and police went to his home in the southern municipality of Kep, he had fled. – dpa
