Cambodian Senate President Hun Sen threatened on Friday to release all private correspondence with an Australia-based political analyst who revealed this week that he was paid to secretly provide information about opposition activists.
Seng Sary, based in Adelaide, told Radio Free Asia on Thursday that he has received more than US$120,000 from Hun Sen since 2021.
The money was in return for passing along information about members of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party, or CNRP, he said. Most of the party’s top leaders fled Cambodia after the Supreme Court banned it in 2017.
Hun Sen, 72, led Cambodia from 1985 until 2023, when he stepped down as prime minister in favor of his son.
For years, he has used intimidation and the courts to neutralize the political opposition. He remains president of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party.
Seng Sary was granted political asylum in Australia in 2022 after a warrant was issued for his arrest in Cambodia.
He told RFA on Thursday that he agreed to work as a spy for Hun Sen partly because of threats made to family members still living in Cambodia.
“I was trapped and colonized by Hun Sen for the past four years,” he said in an interview. “Our relationship is like a boss and an employee.”
Seng Sary added that he still considers Hun Sen a political opponent and hopes to run for office in Cambodia as an opposition candidate someday.
On tape
In response, Hun Sen said on Friday that he has documents and audio messages in which Seng Sary asked for money to pay off a house and for monthly expenses.
In one of two messages sent to RFA, Hun Sen said he considered Seng Sary to be a political consultant –- not someone who was beholden to him.
In his second message, Hun Sen warned that if Seng Sary continued posting critical comments, he would post on his Telegram channel the nearly 300 messages sent to him by Seng Sary over the last few years.
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Seng Sary responded with his own message, saying that he has nothing to hide or lose, and Hun Sen should go ahead and release the messages.
“Father [Hun Sen] you succeeded in destroying me,” he wrote on Facebook on Friday. “I am a political isolationist now but I am free from your political trap. I wish democrats to have success.”
RFA has cited Seng Sary as a political analyst in articles dating back to 2020.
Translated by Yun Samean. Edited by Matt Reed.