Updated Jan. 30, 2023, 4:15 p.m. ET.
Former Cambodian opposition party leader Kem Sokha’s bid to overturn his 27-year sentence for treason will undergo eight more hearings in the coming months after Appeals Court judges at Tuesday’s hearing denied a request to lift visitation restrictions.
Security was tight at the Phnom Penh Appeals Court, with checkpoints outside and reporters barred from the building.
Kem Sokha, 70, was sentenced in March 2023 and placed under house arrest, barred from politics and banned from meeting with non-family members without the court’s permission.
The conviction and verdict were widely condemned as politically motivated.
On Tuesday, Kem Sokha said in court that the restrictions have greatly reduced the number of visits from relatives to his Phnom Penh home, according to his lawyer, Ang Odom.
“Family members who stay with him are regularly checked,” Ang Odom told Radio Free Asia. “This is yet another violation against those people who are not involved with the court case.”
Another court requirement mandates that Kem Sokha’s lawyers seek a judge’s permission before meeting with him. The Appeals Court on Tuesday refused a request to lift that order.
“I already stressed that we will not seek permission. We can’t do that because it is against our professionalism,” Ang Odom said to RFA. “We have the right to see clients at any place during working hours.”
Slow pace
The court’s three-judge panel plans to hold a total of nine hearings in the appeals case at a rate of two per month, according to Ang Odom. The next hearing is scheduled for Feb. 8.
The drawn-out pace matches the original Phnom Penh Municipal Court trial, which also featured hearings, testimony and other proceedings that were sometimes scheduled weeks or months apart.
Kem Sokha was arrested in September 2017, and charged with colluding with a foreign power. After his arrest, he spent a year in a prison near the border with Vietnam.
He was transferred to house arrest in Phnom Penh in October 2018. More than a year later, the court eased some of the restrictions, allowing him to travel inside the country but banning him from participating in politics.
The municipal court trial was delayed for more than a year due to restrictions imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Kem Sokha has always denied the treason charges, which led to his arrest a few months after the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party, or CNRP, made large gains in local commune elections.
The charges relate partly to a video recorded in 2013 in which he discussed a strategy to win power with the help of U.S. experts. The United States Embassy has rejected any suggestion that Washington was trying to interfere in Cambodian politics.
Shortly after the 2017 arrest, Cambodia’s Supreme Court dissolved and outlawed the CNRP, paving the way for then-Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party to take all 125 National Assembly seats in the 2018 general election.
Hun Sen used similar tactics in last July’s election, barring the main opposition Candlelight Party from fielding candidates, allowing his party to win 120 seats in the Assembly.
A month before the 2023 election, Hun Sen refused to pardon Kem Sokha. He stepped down just after the CPP’s election victory. His eldest son, Hun Manet, was appointed prime minister weeks later.
‘International human rights standards’
Amnesty International demanded Kem Sokha’s release this week in a statement issued ahead of Tuesday’s appeal hearing.
“Anyone who dares to speak out against the government is at risk,” said Amnesty’s deputy regional director for research, Montse Ferrer.
“Cambodian authorities must respect, protect, promote and fulfill the human rights of everyone in the country, including the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association, and end the increasing restriction of civic space.”
Sam Rainsy, the exiled acting leader of the CNRP, also called for the 2023 verdict to be quashed.
"There's no way forward for #Cambodia until Kem Sokha is freed and allowed his political rights," he wrote on X.
Phil Robertson, the deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch, said the decision to keep restrictions in place “shows again that in all aspects, the court’s handling of this case on baseless treason charges has never been free or fair.”
“No country that truly respects international human rights standards would ever require a prosecutor’s office to approve a defendant’s access to his legal counsel,” he said.
Earlier this month, Kem Sokha's daughter Monovithya lashed out at Western nations such as France for meeting Cambodia's new leader in the hope of improving relations, calling it "lazy and ineffective."
Translated by Samean Yun. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
Updated to add further comments from Kem Sokha's lawyer.