Cambodia: Details are Sketchy

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.