Cambodia: Opposition leader Sam Rainsy faces new lawsuit

Sam Rainsy, Cambodia's opposition leader. (Source: AFP/VNA)

Hanoi (VNA) – Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has authorised  his lawyer to file a defamation lawsuit against opposition leader Sam Rainsy for accusing him of giving 1 million USD to a social media celebrity to attack the opposition party, local media reported on January 18.

Fresh News cited Ky Tech, a lawyer of the Prime Minister, as saying that PM Hun Sen empowered him to lodge the complaint against Sam Rainsy to the Phnom Penh Municipal Court before he left for Switzerland to attend the World Economic Forum.

The complaint was made after Sam Rainsy, President of the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), said that the Prime Minister had offered social media celebrity Thy Sovantha 1 million USD to fund the campaign against the opposition party.

In the complaint, PM Hun Sen also demanded a compensation of 1 million USD from Sam Rainsy.

A day earlier, Thy Sovanntha also filed a defamation lawsuit against Sam Rainsy, demanding 250,000 USD in compensation.

On August 1, 2016, PM Hun Sen sued Sam Rainsy for slandering the government and the Prime Minister of standing behind the assassination of a political analysis.

Sam Rainsy has been living in exile from November 2015 to avoid a two-year prison sentence over defaming Deputy PM Hor Namhong in 2008.

Last December, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court also sentenced in absentia Sam Rainsy to another five years in prison for conspiring to incite chaos in the country through posting fake documents on his Facebook page.-VNA