The Phnom Penh Post - ENGLISH: “Compensation: ‘Beaten’ DJ says offer not enough” plus 9 more

The lawyer of a man who claims he was handcuffed, beaten and detained by security guards after being fired from his job as a karaoke DJ at Kampot's Bokor mountain said yesterday that his client had been offered $3,000 to walk away from a court case.

Try Chhoun, a lawyer for Kong Buntha, 30, said the victim's mother had rejected his employers' compensation and instead demanded $5,000, because her son needed to pay medical bills and has "not been able to work since".

"The case has arrived at court, that's why the [company] agreed to pay compensation," Chhoun said.

Cheav Samith, deputy provincial police chief, said the court was looking into the case, but declined to comment further.

Buntha alleged last month that he had been beaten and detained in August for deleting karaoke software after being sacked from his job at the Paradise Entertainment Complex, located at the Thansur Bokor Highland Resort.

A resort representative has said the company does not own the karaoke venue, while a PEC staff member – who did not give her name – said neither Thansur Bokor nor PEC had anything to do with what was a "personal" matter between Buntha and her.

"I could give them $500, but not the $5,000 they want," she said.

Even though champions United managed to snatch all three points from the grasp of Stoke City on Saturday, there still appears to be a paradigm shift of success occurring this season away from Manchester.

One emerging prospect for the title is Liverpool, who have only two fewer top tier crowns than United's 20 but last won the league in 1990.

Their talismanic, and often just manic, striker Luis Suarez has been in sensational form since his return from suspension and the Uruguayan bagged a hat-trick, his fourth for the Reds, to amass 17 points in the Cellcard Fantasy League.

Close behind was a remarkable performance by Everton goalkeeper Tim Howard, who saved a penalty along with all manner of other shots to yield 14 points.

Forwards Fernando Torres of Chelsea and Rickie Lambert of Southampton both scored and assisted to collect 12 points a piece, while Tottenham defender Jan Vertonghen also deserved his dozen for setting up a goal and preventing any going in the other end.

Over in the weekly competition, we see our first repeat winner of the season. Nith Poch with her side Aston Memot, which triumphed in gameweek 6 and has now shot to the top of the overall standings, fell just a point shy of a century.

More than a third of Poch's 99 points came from placing Suarez as captain, while a strong supporting cast of Man United's Wayne Rooney (12 points), Arsenal's Per Mertesacker (9) and Tottenham's Michael Dawson (9) fired the team to first.

Poch receives a $20 phone voucher and T-shirt from sponsors Cellcard for her troubles.

Cellcard's Facebook competition that runs concurrently with the Fantasy League enjoyed another high participation rate. The total goals in the gameweek and the highest scoring team were sought with the answers 23 goals and Liverpool correctly guessed by two users – Sokha Lim and Janson Em. Sokha Lim won the lucky draw to claim the spoils of a $10 phone voucher.

Gameweek 10 slots inside of the two-day weekend again, with Arsenal v Liverpool as a blockbuster clash late on Saturday while Sunday's meeting between Cardiff City and Swansea brings about the first Welsh derby in Premier League history.

Local broadcaster CTN wrapped up its five-month long mixed martial arts tournament Khmer Warriors Championship at its TV arena on Sunday, with all three finalists emerging victorious with second round stoppages.

However, the event continued to receive criticism from the public, who complained of a poor standard of combat and officiating compared with other similar events held internationally.

In the 57kg division, Khun Sychan from No 3 Brigade Club, grounded his Police Club rival Ti Ponlet and pounded him with strikes from above to cause the referee to end it at 4:56.

At 60kg, Yos Samal of Khleang Moeung Sports Club beat Ministry of National Defence Association fighter Soung Sovantha via a rear naked choke submission at 3:59 of the second round.

Lastly, the 65kg battle between Khleang Moeung's Von Savy and Police Club's Prak Chansoeun had the latter come out of top at 3:25. Chansoeun bloodied the face of Savy with punches before taking him down and executing a choke to force a tap out.

The three champions received six million riel ($1,500) and a motorbike each while runners up took home four million riel. Third place finishers collected 2.2 million riel.

Quick on her feet and amazingly consistent with her ground strokes, Hour Srey Pov's light frame belies her tennis promise.

At the National Training Centre on Sunday, Srey Pov raced away to a 4-1, 4-2 win over Daria Rakiting to win the Girls U12 title in a junior ranking tournament and keep her unbeaten record through the year intact.

Both the finalists had it easy on the way to the final. While Srey Pov beat Hour Srey Nuch 4-0, 4-0, Rakiting had an identical score-line against Kim Vicheka.

After a determined fightback midway through the match, Ith Leakana ran out of steam towards the closing stages in the girls U14 final, which went in favour of the consistent Cheng Channeang who completed a 6-1, 4-6, 6-1 win.

Channeang and Leakana had made it to the final after finishing with the best records in the round robin stage.

Tep Timothy, grandson of the legendary Tep Khunnah and son of Cambodia's non-playing captain Tep Rithivit, found his way back to winning form by picking up the Boys U14 singles title. Timothy beat Chen Sophors 6-4, 6-4 in the final.

Timothy had beaten Seoun Sothol 6-4, 6-1 in the first semi-final, while Sophors had beaten Sreum Kakada 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 in the other semi-final.

The Boys U12 title went to Sen Sophon, who outlasted Khlang Ponlok 4-1, 4-5, 5-3.

In the semi-finals, Khlang Ponlok beat Leng Sarinreach 4-0, 2-4, 5-3 while Sen Sophon breezed past Sreoum Tola 4-2, 4-2.

Zombies have finally arrived to Cambodia, thanks to a local filmmaker on a shoe-string budget. Run, which the director said is the Kingdom's first zombie flick, features all the hallmarks of the genre in the style of 28 Days Later or The Walking Dead. Rather than London or Atlanta, however, it is the Cambodian capital's turn to be overrun with a zombie virus.

"We wanted to make Phnom Penh an apocalypse," director Touch Oudom, who made the film on a budget of $10,000, said. He added that filmmakers wanted to steer away from ghost stories, which dominate the Cambodian film industry.

The plot will be familiar to any fan of Run's Western counterparts. A team of Cambodia-based scientists attempt to test a new virus vaccine on a human patient, only to have the test subject maul the lab staff. Meanwhile, a group of university students must fight for their lives after their late-night party is interrupted by the "infected". Local landmarks serve as a background to the zombie apocalypse: a TV news team gets slaughtered outside Naga Clinic while the cast parties at Gasolina restaurant.

The zombies' characteristics follow international norms: they are deformed, incommunicable, and hungry for raw flesh. Once exposed to the zombie virus, which is transmissible via bites, the victim has about 20 minutes before they turn. Although not technically dead, explained Uodom, the infected can only be killed through destruction of the brain or heart.

"It's not actually a zombie," Oudom, a purist who believes that only a reanimated corpse meets the zombie classification, said. "They are just infected and become uncontrollable. But in Cambodia, we don't know how to say it in a different way."

The budget was low even by Cambodian standards. Costs were cut by using an all-volunteer cast and crew which was recruited through a tuk-tuk ad campaign. Although the use of volunteers saved money, the lack of experience presented problems. Getting people to wear zombie makeup was difficult, said Uodom, because amateur actors were afraid of looking ugly on camera. Crewmembers had to be trained on set.

"I had to take them through every scene on the set," Oudom, a first-time director with previous experience as a sound engineer and cameraman, said. "Some people didn't know how to use the camera, some people didn't know how to use the light, and some people didn't know how to make the sound."

Vathanak Seth, 28, was among the volunteers who underwent baptism by fire. Despite no previous experience in film, he served as scriptwriter, line producer and lead actor. Although acting was a challenge, Seth said he was helped by the fact that he had written the character a year before filming.

"My character developed from [being] very nerdy, very shy, very unconfident to becoming the hero," Seth, whose character's name is Chun, said. While he wants to continue work in film, Seth said he preferred working behind the scenes.

By doing away with conventional plot devices based on local notions of ghosts and importing the zombie subgenre from the West, the production creates a striking juxtaposition of Cambodian and Western culture that also highlights common cultural ground.

"In Cambodia, it's not that different from the Western countries – [survivors] try to fight back, find some food and some shelter, and survive," Uodom said.

The film, which was produced by Aromfilms and distributed by Westec Media, has also done well at the box office. Koy Socheat, Senior Marketing Executive at Legend Cinema, said that Run sold almost 3,000 tickets in its first five days of showing. It will continue to screen this week with English subtitles at Legend Cinema.

Auto parts manufacturer Denso Cambodia, which has rented space in the Phnom Penh Special Economic Zone (PPSEZ) since July, will expand operations by building its own factory, according to a company representative.

Administrative manager Seng Chanthy said yesterday that the factory will cover 10 hectares and require $10 million in investment before it is slated to begin work in 2015.

"Since we started operations [in July], we have been able to produce products with acceptable quality to send to Denso in Thailand," he said. "With the new factory [we will be able to] gradually produce other products."

Since July, Denso Cambodia has been producing sensor components for ignition devices and shipping them back to Denso Thailand, where they are assembled into bigger automobile parts.

Denso Cambodia is a subsidiary of Japan-based Denso Corporation, a global automotive supplier of advanced technology systems and components.

The corporation has over 200 subsidiaries worldwide and affiliates in 35 countries.

According to a company statement in January, Sojiro Tsuchiya, Denso's executive vice president responsible for the region, said the company had decided to establish a production company in Cambodia to support the increased production of motorcycles and automobiles in the 10 countries that make up ASEAN.

"This will enhance our production needs for customers in the region," he said.

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday convicted six men – one a military police officer – of aggravated theft for stealing over 8,000 T-shirts and pairs of pants in a heist on a shipping container bound for the Sihanoukville port last year.

Presiding Judge Sous Sam Ath sentenced National Military Police officer Ear Nath, 49, and Moeng Vuthy, aka Sweth, 22, to four years in prison, while Suth Dina, 49, Khuth Sokheng, 29, and Larch Kimsrun, 28, were each sentenced to three years. Sor Niwat, 17, was given a two-year sentence.

"It is ordered that these six convicted people jointly pay a total of 14 million riel [about $3,500] in damages to the victim," Sam Ath said.

According to Sam Ath, the shipping container had been on a truck parked outside a customs office in Phnom Penh's Russei Keo district at shortly after midnight on December 2, 2012.

The defendants broke into the back of the truck and managed to make off with the clothes without waking the driver, who was sleeping in the front.

The men were arrested the same month by the National Military Police based on a complaint from the owner of the container.

The six defendants and their lawyers could not be reached for comment yesterday.

More than 10 families in Pailin province are claiming that flood aid proffered by Cambodia Red Cross officials is being unfairly distributed by commune and village authorities.

Kim San, 61, a member of one of 16 severely flood-affected families in Sala Krao district's Stung Trang commune levelling the allegations, said officials had only distributed 10 out of 80 packages of donated instant noodles.

"The 16 most affected families were not given any relief packages because of the nepotism [and graft] of village and commune chiefs. When we complained, they said we would get the aid next time," San said yesterday.

The claim was flatly rejected by Stung Trang commune chief Keo Rodet, who claimed only 700 of the 2,000 families in the commune received rations, a decision determined by need, rather than graft.

"The aid distribution is done appropriately at the provincial level, but those who didn't receive any reacted strongly," Rodet said, claiming villagers' interests were central to officials' distribution of relief aid.

Prime Minister Hun Sen's wife, Bun Rany, has led the Cambodia Red Cross since 1998 and was in Pailin distributing supplies to nearly 2,188 flood victims yesterday.

Cambodia Red Cross officials declined to comment.

As flooding recedes in most of the 20 affected provinces, victims continue facing scores of recovery challenges including sanitation, food security, health and shelter concerns, as well as a lack of potable water.

In its fourth report on the flood situation, released yesterday, the Humanitarian Response Forum – a network including the UN and NGOs – found the flooding caused 168 deaths and affected over 1.7 million people, shuttering 1,390 schools and 78 hospitals and health centres.

A British national allegedly caught engaging in intercourse with an eight-year-old boy was arrested in Phnom Penh's Daun Penh district on Sunday evening.

Richard William Fruin, a teacher at the Universal English School, was arrested at Boeung Meas Guesthouse in Srah Chak commune, Colonel Lao Lin, chief of Anti-Human Trafficking and the Juvenile Protection office of the Ministry of Interior, confirmed.

"He will soon be sent to Phnom Penh Municipal Court to be charged after officials complete his interrogation," Lin said, noting the eight-year-old victim had been rescued during the suspect's arrest.
Fruin, 36, would be charged with soliciting child prostitution, Lin added.

"He's still being questioned by our police at the Anti-Human Trafficking and Juvenile Protection Office."

The arrest was the conclusion of a nearly month-long operation conducted by NGO Action Pour Les Enfants (APLE), an investigation connecting the suspect to up to three other instances of underage sex with young boys at the same guesthouse.

Vando Khoem, deputy director of APLE's project combating sexual abuse of children and human trafficking, lauded the efforts of anti-trafficking police involved in the operation.

"It was a strong message to all foreign nationals and foreign tourists that Cambodia is not a haven for sexual abuse against children," Koem said.

Fruin and his legal representation could not be reached for comment yesterday.

A teacher at Tea Chamrath High School in Pursat town has accused school director Bou Sovannarith and deputy director Chhub Buntha of forcing students to pay bribes in the form of, among other things, enrolment fees for matriculation into the 2013-2014 academic year.

Phat Malin, the teacher in question, said the officials solicited 5,000 riel (about $1.25) from each student who sought to enroll, and created other fraudulent fees to bilk students out of even more money. Malin filed her complaint to the Cambodian Independent Teachers' Association, which has forwarded it to the Ministry of Interior, CITA president Rong Chhun said yesterday.

The fee was strictly enforced, Malin said, and some students who brought only 3,000 riel were turned away by the officials, who told them to return when they had the full amount. And the charges didn't end there, she added.

"It was not only one case, but there are a lot of cases involving corruption by the directors, such as students having to pay 1,000 riel to the school when they borrow reading books from the library, and students who transfer from another school to this school having to pay between 20,000 riel and 80,000 riel," Malin said.

Sovannarith, the director at the centre of the accusations, maintained yesterday that he had simply asked for voluntary donations for new pavement.

"This is completely wrong. I did not do what [Malin] said," he said. "According to the law of the Education Ministry, enrolment for all students is free. So how can I charge my students?" he asked.

Bouy Bunna, a consultant with the ministry, said provincial officials would investigate the allegations, and added that soliciting money for enrolment and library use was indeed illegal.