Cambodian men charged with terrorism in failed bomb plot

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia: A Cambodian court charged two men with terrorism Wednesday in connection with a recently failed plot to blow up a monument in the heart of the country's capital, officials said.

Sok Roeun, a prosecutor at Phnom Penh Municipal Court, said he charged Kem Toeun, 53, and Son Than, 42, with terrorism, which carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

Police arrested the two men Monday, a day after explosives disposal experts defused bombs planted at the city's Cambodia-Vietnam friendship monument, said police Maj. Gen. Chhay Sinarith, who is chief of the Interior Ministry's information department.

"Their main purpose was to destroy the monument because it is a symbol of good relations between the Cambodian and Vietnamese governments," Chhay Sinarith said, adding police were looking for more plotters.

The three homemade bombs found Sunday — made of a mixture of TNT and fertilizer packed in three buckets — were planted at a monument dedicated to Vietnamese soldiers who invaded Cambodia to topple the Khmer Rouge in 1979.

The monument is located in a park about 500 meters (yards) from the southern wall of the Royal Palace, where King Norodom Sihamoni and his parents live.

The monument was erected by a pro-Vietnamese Cambodian government nearly 20 years ago.

Both arrested men are members of the Khmer Kampuchea Krom Liberation Front, said Chhay Sinarith. He said the group is based outside Cambodia and advocates taking back territory in southern Vietnam that used to belong to Cambodia.

Many Cambodians resent neighboring Vietnam, which is a traditional enemy that they feel has designs on their country's land. But government-to-government relations are good — Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen was originally part of a puppet regime installed by Hanoi after the Vietnamese invasion.

Hun Sen's political opponents view the monument as a symbol of a humiliating decade-long occupation by Vietnamese troops following their invasion.

Protesters partially destroyed it during an anti-government demonstration in 1998.

The monument was later restored, and visiting Vietnamese leaders often go there to pay respects to their fallen soldiers.