PHNOM PENH, MILLAT+(APP/AFP) – Cambodian opposition
leader Sam Rainsy was sentenced to five years in prison on Tuesday over a post on his Facebook page, a conviction that makes his return from self-imposed exile unlikely.
The conviction caps a major crackdown this year on critics of the
country’s strongman leader Prime Minister Hun Sen, who has run Cambodia for more than three decades often with the help of pliant courts.
Activists say Hun Sen is trying to keep his opponents under pressure
ahead of regional elections next year and a general election in 2018.
Scores of opposition politicians and rights group workers have been
jailed or seen legal cases filed against them in recent months.
Rainsy, who currently lives in France, was convicted in absentia by
Phnom Penh’s Municipal Court on Tuesday for a post placed on his Facebook page by a third party about Cambodia’s border with Vietnam, a highly contentious issue in the country.
Anti-Vietnamese sentiment runs high in Cambodia and parts of the
border are still disputed. Hun Sen’s critics accuse him of being too close to Vietnam, a charge he denies and bristles at.
The case concerned copies of a 37-year-old treaty between Cambodia
and Vietnam over their shared border that were posted on social media last year.