🔗 Share this article

A Thai court has handed down a sentence to a man to life in prison for murdering a prominent Cambodian opposition politician in Bangkok.

In January, hours after the politician arrived in the Thai capital with his wife, he was shot dead in public by citizen of Thailand Ekkalak Paenoi. Ekkalak then escaped to the neighboring country, where he was apprehended and deported.

Ekkalak had initially been handed the capital punishment, but that was reduced to a life sentence because of his admission to the murder, the court said on Friday.

The reason behind the politician's assassination remains unclear - though it has been broadly believed to be a politically driven targeted killing.

Political Context in Cambodia

Dissident figures and campaigners are often jailed and intimidated in the nation, where authorities have little tolerance for political dissent.

The deceased, who had dual Cambodian and French nationality, was a former parliamentarian from the primary opposition group in Cambodia, the CNRP.

This political party had come close to defeating the incumbent government of ex-leader Hun Sen in the year 2013.

After Hun Sen accused the opposition party of treason, the political organization was banned in 2017 and its supporters were barred from taking part in political activities.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet - who took over from his father Hun Sen in 2023 - has rejected claims that the administration was involved in the assassination.

Details of the Legal Proceedings

Security camera footage from January showed Ekkalak parking his motorbike, removing his helmet and strolling calmly across the road before shots rang out.

Ekkalak was also convicted of carrying and using a gun, and instructed to pay around 55,000 US dollars (40,800 British pounds) to Lim Kimya's family.

The tribunal threw out a charge against a second suspect - a Thai national accused of driving the killer to the Cambodian border after the incident - on the grounds that he was only a driver who did not have knowledge of the killing.

Reactions and Wider Consequences

The legal representative for the widow of the victim told news agency the press that she was "likely content" with the court's decision, though she was "still questioning who ordered the crime".

"She desires the officials to get to the bottom of it."

In the past few years dozens of protesters fleeing crackdowns in Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand have been returned after seeking sanctuary, or in certain instances have been killed or disappeared.

Human rights groups believe there is an tacit understanding among the four adjacent nations to allow each other's law enforcement to chase opponents over the frontier.