Cambodia: Details are Sketchy

Sometimes you can’t help but think that Cambodia-based airlines are cursed.

Cambodia-based Angkor Airways will suspend its flights between Taipei and the Southeast Asian country today, as it has run into financial difficulties after the detention of a top company executive on criminal charges in Taiwan, the airline’s branch office in Taiwan announced yesterday.

Alex Lou, executive director of the Taiwan branch office, has been solely in charge of sourcing funding for operations, and his detention has plunged the company into financial woes, the office said. [...]

Lou has been detained following questioning by prosecutors in Taipei on May 1 as part of their investigation into an embezzlement scandal hitting the debt-ridden Fast Eastern Air Transport. [...]

Taipei prosecutors suspect that top-ranking managers at FAT pocketed company funds and purposely let Angkor Airways delay paying FAT the NT$700 million owed for leasing aircraft from the Taiwanese carrier.

VIA KI: Almost as a side note to yet another acid-attack story, Everyday says that In Soklyda, Cambodia’s 2003 Ms Tourism International contestant, has been missing since May 3. In Soklyda’s aunt, Ya Soknim, was presumably involved.

The aunt of former tourism beauty pageant In Soklyda was the victim of an acid attack which burnt half of her body at 10:00 AM on 08 May 2008, in front of the RAC organization medical clinic, located along Street No. 432, Tuol Tompoung commune, Chamcar Mon district, Phnom Penh city. Local news media reported that the acid attack took place after the 24-year-old In Soklyda disappeared. In Soklyda was the 5th runner up for the tourism beauty pageant, among 32 candidates from countries participating in this past competition.

Behind every murdered and/or disfigured pop starlet typically lies a powerful government official. So the question is, whose girlfriend was she?

UPDATE: In the weekend edition The Cambodia Daily helps clarify some of the confusion. While details are still sketchy, the aunt, Ya Soknim, is not believed to be involved in the disappearance of In Soklyda. Instead, Ya Soknim has apparently been blamed for breaking up In Soklyda and her powerful government official boyfriend. Ya Soknim has been acid attacked as retribution. As for In Soklyda, the Daily gives the impression that she is in hiding from an ex-boyfriend who threatened to slaughter her whole family should she spurn his affections.

Perhaps In Soklyda has been saved in this instance. At least for now. Against such a horrifying backdrop, the monogamy law doesn’t seem so draconian. In most cases in the past it’s been the jealous wives behind such horrendous attacks. This time it’s the spurned boyfriend. The name of the official in question is still hush-hush. But these things seldom remain secrets for long. He should be made an example of.

This is one of the most serious cases of violence against a journalist in some time.

According to the Cambodian Association for the Protection of Journalists (CAPJ), Meas Asi, a reporter for Panhavorn Khmer (Khmer Intellectual), based in Koh Kong province, was allegedly stopped by police and beaten unconscious before being taken to Koh Kong prison.

Asi was on his way to cover a protest by members of Chhouk village to draw Prime Minister Hun Sen’s attention to land ownership issues when the incident occurred.

CAPJ reported that the incident may be related to Asi’s investigation into a land dispute between 75 families in Chhouk and a wealthy land owner.

Sadly, there’s almost no reason to believe that this kind of abuse will stop anytime soon. To the contrary. As the number of Cambodians with nothing left to lose continues to multiply, so to will the brutality with which the government uses to silence them.

VIA KI: Students at Stanford University are turning the story of Tat Marina into a comic book, er, graphic novel. Tat Marina, you may recall, was the 16-year-old karaoke singer beaten unconscious and then drenched with nitric acid outside the Olympic Market in 1999.

Tat Marina, known as “Rina” in the karaoke video business, was attacked while eating rice soup with her 3-year-old niece near the Olympic Market in Phnom Penh.

According to police, witnesses and family members, Tat Marina was yanked to the ground, kicked and kneed in the chest repeatedly until she passed out. She was then doused with more than a liter of nitric acid.

Soon after the attack, the district police chief identified the prime suspects as Khoun Sophal the wife of Council of Ministers Undersecretary of State Svay Sitha, and two bodyguards. In late December a municipal court judge issued an arrest warrant for Khoun Sophal.

But today Khoun Sophal remains at large and the two bodyguards who allegedly accompanied her remain unidentified with no warrants for their arrest.

Lek Vannak, the municipality’s judiciary police chief, said Thursday in Phnom Penh that he believes Khoun Sophal is in the capital under someone’s protection.

The Stanford book is called “Shake Girl“, and it’s available online. Although in the parlance of Northern California, the image-heavy site is hella-slow. As for Khoun Sophal, if there is any justice in the world, she is slowly, painfully rotting in a forgotten dungeon in hell.

This being Cambodia, however, she’s probably getting a pedicure by the poolside at her palatial government estate.

The Business Standard gives short shrift to Thailand’s rice-cartel idea.

The recent bid by Thailand and Cambodia to revive the long-dormant proposal for creating an Opec-like cartel of five rice-exporting countries of South-east Asia is both ill-timed and ill-advised; indeed, prima facie, the idea is unworkable.

[...]

Going beyond the immediate interests of rice-exporters and -importers, the truth is that a successful rice cartel is almost impossible to visualise. Even if the alliance partners agree on a price band, it will be difficult for them to control production/supply — which is a key requirement for a successful cartel. This is especially so because some of these countries grow three or four crops of paddy in a year and, unlike oil wells, which can be switched on and off, a paddy harvest cannot be so regulated.

It’s probably worth pointing out that the cartel idea was initiated at the behest of Thailand’s Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej. As seems typical with Thai politicians these days, the less smart ones appear keen to make the headlines with half-baked policy ideas, sending the educated ones scurrying into damage control mode.

The cartel idea has been roundly denounced by many. And in the wake of global scorn for the idea Thailand quickly retreated.

But not before revealing itself as a greedy, cynical pimp in the global hunger game. Collusion and price-fixing are not business practices generally accepted as consumer-friendly. That Thailand thought nobody would notice this reveals an appalling level of disdain for the very people the country says it is trying to help. To bad then that Prime Minister Hun Sen appeared only too willing to get in on the action.

After years of searching authorities have located and arrested Sin Dorn in connection with the murder of British deminer Christopher Howes, reports Reuters.

Cambodia has arrested and charged a former Khmer Rouge soldier in connection with the murder of a British de-miner more than a decade ago, a judge said on Wednesday.

Sin Dorn, 52, was formally charged on Tuesday with the abduction and premeditated murder of Christopher Howes of UK-based charity Mines Advisory Group in the northern province of Siem Reap in 1996. His Cambodian translator was also killed.

“The authorities were searching for him for several years, but couldn’t find him. We finally arrested him and have thrown him in jail,” investigating Judge Ke Sakhan told Reuters.

Authorities couldn’t have been looking too hard. Sin Dorn was found near Anlong Veng, not far from where Christopher Howes was murdered. The BBC has more.

Hong Kong venture capitalists are making a move on Cambodia.

A Hong Kong-based private equity firm is raising a fund to invest in a country infamous for its genocidal Communist regime but now looking forward to the opening of its first stock exchange next year.

Leopard Capital has completed an initial closing of the Leopard Cambodia Fund, which has a target size of US$100 million and an expected lifespan of 10 years. The fund has won commitments from investors in Europe, the U.S. and Asia.

Leopard will invest in companies and real estate positioned to benefit from Cambodia’s rapid economic growth and integration into the global economy, according to the firm. It will focus on venture, expansion, and buy-out opportunities, primarily in the financial services, retailing, construction materials, agribusiness, tourism and property development sectors.

They call him “Peaceman,” apparently, because he is so violent.

Cambodian police arrived in the nick of time to save a British man from a lynch mob after he allegedly savagely beat his girlfriend on the street, an officer said Monday.

David Finch, 42, of Birmingham, had allegedly been punching and kicking his 20-year-old Cambodian girlfriend on the footpath when his neighbours decided they could take no more, said Chhit Vuthy, deputy police chief of Psar Kandal 1 in the capital, the dpa reported.

“They formed a mob and managed to hit him hard in the head but we arrived just in time and then they had to let him go,” Vuthy said. “He has no respect for Cambodians, and they were angry.”

Sam Rainsy, who is traditionally on the receiving end of half-baked, politically fueled lawsuits, is apparently trying to prove to the nation that he too has what it takes to be the dictator-in-chief.

Mr. Sam Rainsy also said that he will lodge a law suit against Hor Namhong in the Khmer Rouge Tribunal in relation to the deaths of millions people during the Khmer Rouge regime.

Trumped-up, fact-free lawsuits are the norm around here, of course. But Sam Rainsy, Cambodia’s lonely warrior in the fight for freedom and justice, used to denounce such things, not spearhead them. It must be an election year.

Something called the “KR Tribunal Blog” emerged at the Phnom Penh Post web site over the weekend. Written by Elena Lesley, a Fullbright Fellow, the blog is likely to emerge as mandatory reading for anyone following events at the ECCC.

DPA reports that Bart ‘Lucky’ Lauwaert has been found dead in his Siem Reap jail cell.

An Australian national has been found dead in his Cambodian jail cell, officials and family said.

Bart “Lucky” Lauwaert, a former teacher, had been serving a 20-year sentence for child sex offences in a case which was spearheaded by local rights group, the Cambodian Women’s Crisis Centre (CWCC).

In a phone interview from Siem Reap prison, 400 kilometres north of the capital, after his last avenue of appeal was closed last month, Lauwaert again alleged he had been “set up” by people trying to garner donor aid from high profile arrests and threatened suicide.

A prison official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Lauwaert had not been on suicide watch and no formal cause of death had been established, although heart failure had not been ruled out.

The Asia Times yesterday gazed into the tea leaves for insight into the coming national elections. In a counterintuitive reading, the AT article suggests that the large number of smaller parties will give the ruling giant trouble.

A gathering coalition of smaller parties could give Prime Minister Hun Sen’s now dominant Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) an unexpected run for its money at National Assembly elections scheduled for this July.

The CPP has ruled the country either alone or in tandem with rival parties since the restoration of multi-party democracy in 1993 and in recent years has strongly consolidated its grip on political power. With its comparatively strong grassroots network, firm control over the national media, and recent successful economic policies, the CPP is widely expected to win the most seats at this year’s polls. But perhaps not by the landslide many analysts had until now predicted.

To substantiate this hypothesis Brian McCartan, the author of the story, reads the growing list of electoral complaints as signs of weakness on the part of the CPP. And perhaps in some small way that is true. But such contrarianism is likely misplaced.

“Rough and tumble election campaigns,” as the AT article puts it, are not a calculated CPP GOTV strategy per se. Political thuggery, violence and intimidation are ways of life in patriarchal Cambodia, not campaign techniques.

As McCartan points out, reports of election-related violence so far are at all-time lows. And why shouldn’t it be? The CPP controls 98% of the country’s communes. The historical leader of the Funcinpec party remains in self-imposed exiled and what’s left of the beheaded opposition remains firmly on a CPP leash. Throw in the recent constitutional change allowing for a simple majority to form a government, and the CPP doesn’t need a landslide. It just needs 51%. Beyond deluded opposition party lackeys, nobody believes the CPP won’t take that with a comfortable margin.

Safe as houses London, says a new study.

Phnom Penh is now a safer city than London, New York, Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Buenos Aires, although crime rates are still high in rural areas, according to a new report.

The study by Rod Broadhurst and Thierry Bouhours of Australia’s Griffith University surveyed 1,092 households in the capital and 635 in Kandal province, comparing the findings with similar sweeps conducted in 2001 and United Nations crime perception statistics from 26 other cities across the world.

[...]

“We attribute [the fall in crime] to improvements in local governance, more wealth, better security and reduction in firearms,” Broadhurst said by email. However, Phnom Penh is still plagued by high levels of burglary, corruption and theft, and victimization rates in Kandal have remained constant since 2001, the report said.

So sayeth the gossip rags.

Pop superstar Madonna reportedly wants to adopt a second child and is considering Cambodia and Palestine as likely regions from where she could get a kid.

Though she had a bad experience with her adoption of Malawian child David Banda, she has not been deterred. She now wants to add to her family with husband Guy Ritchie. The process in Malawi is still not over even though she has had David for 18 months, contactmusic.com reports.

[...]

Madonna has slammed claims that celebrities adopting kids is just a “fad”.

She said: “I don’t see how anyone who understands how complicated it is to adopt a child could say that someone chose to do that as a fad. It’s just too difficult. It’s too traumatic.

Villagers in Thailand have stumbled across utensils in a cave dating back 4,000 years.

Archeologists found scattered household utensils and pottery belonging to the prehistoric period in a cave in an eastern Thai province bordering Cambodia. Lt. Niran Yano accompanied by archeologists explored a cave on Chanthaburi’s Khao Noi mountain near the Thai-Cambodian border and reported the discovery of archeological objects dated back 4,000 years.

The exploration was carried out after the local residents reported the accidental discovery of such objects scattered and in some cases, buried, in the floor of a cave large enough to accommodate hundreds of people. The villagers also said that objects of similar appearance and antiquity had been found in other sites such as caves on Khao Jum-pa and Khao Sa-thorn mountains. The two caves are seven kilometres apart, according to Lt. Niran.

The caves are believed to be located along an ancient and unexplored trade route connecting what is now modern-day Cambodia and Thailand. The significance of the find is still unknown.

Remember all those allegations of corruption, kickbacks-for-jobs, incompetence and nepotism leveled at the ECCC a few months back. That’s all cool now.

Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge genocide tribunal is making significant progress in improving management problems that led to accusations of corruption, donors said Friday after a new audit.

Allegations of kickbacks and malpractice have dogged Cambodian members of the tribunal. An earlier audit initiated by the U.N. found shortcomings in its management.

[...]

A new audit scrutinizing the Cambodian side’s operations shows reforms have been effective, two diplomats from the United Nations and the European Commission said.

“This special review has shown that we (now) have a system that can work,” Rafael Dochao Moreno, charge d’affaires of the European Commission’s mission to Cambodia, told reporters.

Sam Rainsy, who is currently traveling in the United States, spoke to Voice of America about the lawsuit filed against him by Minister of Foreign Affairs Hor Namhong.

Sam Rainsy said that he will not apologize to Hor Nam Hong who threatened to sue him.

Sam Rainsy, who is currently visiting the US, said that he did not specifically name Hor Nam Hong as being the Boeng Trabek jail chief: “Whatever I spoke was the truth, and I did not name anybody. I only said that the person had the rank of minister of Foreign Affairs after the KR regime. After the KR regime, there are many Foreign Affairs ministers: the one immediately after Ieng Sary, following Pol Pot’s departure, was Mr. Hun Sen, then there was Mr. Kong Korm, Prince Norodom Sirivudh, and then Mr. Hor Nam Hong.

[...]

Sam Rainsy added that there is no need to look for any further tribunal, if (Hor Nam Hong) wants to sue about the KR issue, the Extraordinary Chamber in the Court of Cambodia (ECCC or KR Tribunal) is a tribunal that can be trusted to find out who the Boeng Trabek jail chief really was..

Sam Rainsy said that the current situation is different from what it used to be in the past, if indeed there is a lawsuit against each other: “Before, it was difficult to find witnesses, because at that time, the UN did not arrive (in Cambodia) yet, and there was no UNTAC election organization yet either. No witnesses dare to come out (at that time). But now, the situation is such that, after the 1993 election, there are human rights organizations, there is the documentation center, now we have information, we have more witnesses than before. Earlier, King Norodom Sihanouk had a hard time finding (witnesses), then, nobody dares to come out, and there were not many documents, there was no documentation center as we have now. Therefore, the (current) situation is different from what it used to be.”

If Rainsy knows of people who will come forth and testify against Hor Namhong, he might have a case. That seems unlikely, though. People who have made a living out of researching these things do not believe that Hor Namhong held any serious responsibility at any time under the Khmer Rouge. Nor is it likely that he-said-she-said bickering over 30-year-old events will produce conclusive evidence either way. (Not to mention the courts are totally in the pocket of the CPP and a fair trial would be impossible.)

So right now Rainsy faces to two unappealing options: apologize, or give up Cambodia. While he might be defiant now, Sam Rainsy knows what’s good for Sam Rainsy. And campaigning for the July elections from France is not it.

DPA reports:

Phnom Penh - A Cambodian man has been charged with murdering his own father after becoming ‘embarrassed’ by village gossip that the man was a sorcerer, police said Thursday.

Penal police chief in the central province of Kampong Chhnang, Chim Bunthueon, said Tong Syleina, 20, attacked his father, Khat Tongly, 56, on Monday, hacking him to death with a machete.

[...]

‘He admitted that he did the murder because he felt ashamed and embarrassed about village gossip that his father was a sorcerer. The villagers insulted his family with this talk and called him son of sorcerer and witch boy,’ Bunthueon said.

In a rather endearing post about injustice in Cambodia, Carrie Martin says this:

Earlier this month, I had the opportunity to attend a Christians for Social Justice meeting here in Phnom Penh … my mind was blown by information about injustices in this country … Information about a major cell phone company tapping NGO phone lines …

Huh? Details, please.

In just his first day at the ECCC, and already Jacques Vergès is raising Cain.

THE controversial French lawyer defending the former president of the Khmer Rouge stormed out of Cambodia’s genocide tribunal yesterday – because thousands of pages of documents had not been translated into French.

Jacques Vergès is defending Khieu Samphan, 76, in his appeal against pre-trial detention on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes.

[...]

He told journalists that judges at the Phnom Penh hearing had asked Khieu Samphan to find a new lawyer. “This is a scandal,” he said. “This never happens, except in dictatorships.”

It seems unlikely that Mr Verges will be long for Cambodia with cracks like that. Fewer things ruffle Cambodian sensibilities like an uppity barang.

Rasmei Kampuchea says that Sam Rainsy faces a stint in prison for his wisecracks about Hor Namhong.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Hor Nam Hong said on Tuesday that he was forced to sue Sam Rainsy, the opposition leader in Cambodia, for disinformation.

The opposition leader could face imprisonment or a fine if he is found guilty in the disinformation lawsuit, according to the Cambodian law.

[...]

However, the Minister of Foreign Affairs said that if Sam Rainsy admits that he was wrong and apologised for his mistake, he would not have to bring the lawsuits to the court to keep the political environment calm before the national election, schedule for 27 July 2008.

Anyone that has followed Sam Rainsy’s career will know very well that Sam Rainsy does not do prison. Expect an apology posthaste.

Tapehead reviews Dengue Fever’s Venus on Earth.

Beginning with the ultra-sleek, “Seeing Hands,” lead vocalist, Chhom Nimol is the Khmer-equivalent of Nancy Sinatra, exuding the same sort of sex kitten cuteness that calls for slink dresses and go-go boots, but not at the expense of her voice, which is what really draws attention. Most of the songs are sung in Khmer (Cambodian language), so the instrumentation winds up setting the tone, which ranges anywhere from sultry and laid back (“Clipped Wings”) to determined and passionate (“Laugh Track.”)

That being said, these actually wind up being the album’s highpoints as the English language tracks lack the poetry to match the music. It’s as if the group dumbs themselves down, opting for the overdubbed version of the foreign film because they hate to read movies.

The “foreign films” analogy is perhaps a bit awkward, but true nonetheless. The Khmer language stuff on the new album, same as previous albums, far outshines the English stuff.

Available at Russian Market.

Khieu Samphan appeared in court today to protest his detention.

The former head of state of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge government has appeared at United Nations-backed tribunal to appeal for release from his pre-trial detention.

The tribunal has charged Khieu Samphan, 76, with crimes against humanity and war crimes committed when the communist Khmer Rouge held power between 1975 and 1979.

AP offers a similar version of the events. Reuters, AP and John Vink have photos.

As a result of the rising cost of rice, nearly half a million kids are expected to start missing meals in the coming weeks.

The World Food Program cut off rice deliveries to 1,344 Cambodian schools last month after prices doubled and suppliers defaulted on contracts. Schools will run out of food by May 1, depriving about 450,000 children of meals, the WFP estimates.

“Over time, this will result in higher malnutrition rates and lessen the physical and mental development of these children at a critical period in their lives,” says Paul Risley, a Bangkok-based spokesman for the United Nations agency.

Recent curbs on rice exports have made sure that Cambodia’s rice supply remains adequate. But like many Cambodians, the WFP just can’t afford the higher prices. Not and, you know, still put gas in their Landrovers.

Recent remarks by Sam Rainsy have yet again raised debate over to what degree current Minister of Foreign Affairs Hor Namhong was a bloodthirsty Khmer Rouge executioner.

In a ceremony to commemorate the fall of Phnom Penh to Khmer Rouge guerrillas in 1975, Sam Rainsy said Thursday at least two ministers in the current government were cadres of the regime.

“One of them was secretary and interpreter of Pol Pot and who is senior minister and Minister of Economy and another current deputy prime minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs was director of Beoung Trabek prison,” Sam Rainsy said. “The director of a prison can point someone and this person will be disappeared.”

Director of a prison? What? Nobody, not even Sam Rainsy, believes that Hor Namhong was director of anything, much less the Beoung Trabek detention center, known as B-32. The “B” stands for borateh, the Khmer word for foreigner. From 1967 until his return in 1975, Hor Namhong was stationed outside the country, making him, in the eyes of the KR leadership, a foreigner, and thus an extremely unlikely candidate for insider status in the Khmer Rouge brotherhood. But the implication, as Khmerization so helpfully illustrates, is clear.

Sam Rainsy said that Hor Namhong was a director of the Boeng Trabek Prison, which was true. And, as a chief of the prison, he was responsible for the tortures, murders and disappearances of many Cambodian and foreign diplomats, the likes of Sarin Chhak, Chau Seng etc. who were imprisoned at Boeng Trabek and who have disappeared mysteriously without a trace.

Such an interpretation goes light years beyond all available evidence. To the word it is wrong.

Read the rest of this entry »

AP reports on today’s drug bust gone bad.

A handcuffed suspected drug dealer fatally shot a policeman and wounded four other officers with a concealed handgun during a raid Tuesday, police said.

Phnom Penh police Chief Touch Naroth blamed the officers for failing to properly search the suspect when they stormed his room in the Cambodian capital.

After handcuffing the suspect, the raiding officers pushed the man to the floor without patting down his body for hidden weapons, he said.

While police carried out a search of the room, the suspect picked up a small gun that had fallen from the waistband of his pants and started shooting, killing a 31-year-old officer instantly. Four others were hurt.

“It was their negligence for not searching his body right after apprehending him,” Touch Naroth said, adding the wounded officers were being treated at a hospital.

So what do you think happened to the suspect? AP is silent on the issue, if that’s any hint.

UPDATE: Kep Samon, 27, was taken into police custody unharmed. He made the cover of The Cambodia Daily the next morning, Wednesday April 25.

FYI: The Post is putting its entire library online.

Cambodia is not happy with the Dalai Lama.

Cambodia opposes attempts by the Dalai clique to sabotage the upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing by making use of the Tibet issue, Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Hor Namhong said on Monday.

Cambodia also opposes any foreign interference in China’s internal affairs, said Hor, who is also minister of foreign affairs and international cooperation, during a meeting with a visiting Chinese delegation.

Speak out against policies that result in the large-scale slaughter of innocent civilians and the Cambodian government thinks you’re meddling in the affairs of a sovereign nation. Implement policies that result in the large-scale slaughter of another country’s innocent civilians and the Cambodian government thinks you’re just dandy.

Somebody obviously missed a lesson or two on karma.

The Sex Trafficking blog takes a brief historical look at prostitution in late 20th and early 21st century Cambodia.

As I mentioned before, the communist regime in the 1970’s and the following government control in Cambodia kept prostitution to a low during its rule (although the rule did have a LOT of other flaws making life very difficult for the average Cambodian).

That’s an interesting way to frame it, no? You say genocide; I say effective prostitution control!

Snark aside, the post goes on to lay much of the blame for Cambodia’s prostitution problems at the feet of UNTAC, blame for which UNTAC is no doubt deserving. But in doing so ST also appears to buy into the relatively common myth that prostitution in Cambodia was uniquely an UNTAC creation, and that in the pre-war years prostitution simply did not exist. That’s just not true.

Jacques Verges, a.k.a  Monsieur Guillotine because that’s were most of his clients tend to wind up, landed in Cambodia today on a mission to defend Khieu Samphan.

A French lawyer who defended terrorists and a former Nazi officer arrived in Cambodia on Monday to represent a former Khmer Rouge leader.

Jacques Verges declined to comment and only said “go to the court” before being whisked away in a car after his arrival at Phnom Penh International Airport.

Verges will join a Cambodian attorney to argue former Khmer Rouge leader Khieu Samphan’s appeal against his pretrial detention.

If nothing else, Monsieur Guillotine should liven up the activities out in Kambol. Save for the odd “heart attack” alarm, the proceeding so far have been rather uneventful. Verges has made a name for himself by defending the planet’s most vile criminals, often by employing outrageous claims and his trademark “attack the prosecution” style.

There’s this, too.

From the moment of his birth in 1925, in Thailand, Vergès had experienced racial hatred firsthand. His father, Raymond Vergès, a French doctor and a diplomat, had lost his job because he married a Vietnamese woman, something Frenchmen were simply not allowed to do in those days.

Boy, is he in for a surprise.