C d The ambodia

The Cambodia daily
All the News Without Fear or Favor
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
Volume 59 Issue 54
2,000 riel/50 cents
Businessman
Freed After
Intervention
By Officials
B y S imon H enderSon
and H ay P iSey
THE CAMBODIA DAILY
the Phnom Penh Municipal
Court on thursday ordered that
Cambodian-american businessman richer San be released from
prison, where he was being held on
serious fraud charges, overturning
the appeal Court’s decision to reject his bail request a week earlier,
court officials said yesterday.
the decision came after intervention from the U.S. Embassy and
with the blessing of Prime Minister
Hun Sen, a lawyer in the case said.
Phnom Penh dentist Eng Lykuong accuses Mr. San, along with
his three partners—New york
State assemblyman William Nojay,
former U.S. envoy to the U.N. Sichan Siv and texan businessman
thomas Willems—of conning her
into investing $1 million in their
company, akra agricultural
Partners Inc.
the 52-year-old Mr. San, who
has filed a counter-lawsuit against
Ms. Lykuong demanding $1 million in compensation for defamation and false testimony, had already appealed to be released on
bail, citing his poor health. But on
October 9, appeal Court judge In
Vanvibol rejected his request, saying there was too great a risk that
Continued on page 2
About Cambodia
• Preah Vihear Protesters Clash
With Security Guards in
Capital
• CNRP Begins Registration for
First Opposition TV Station
Page 15
• ADB to Help Find Answers for
Railway Families
• Destitute Villagers Band
Together to Find Baby
Page 16
• 'Khmer for Khmer' Group
Says No Party Plans
• Gov't Sets Ground Rules for
Ongoing Wage Talks
Page 17
John Vink
Land rights activist Ouk Pich Samnang attempts to drive his tuk-tuk through a security barricade near
Prime Minister Hun Sen's house in Phnom Penh yesterday during a protest by evictees from Preah
Vihear province. (Story page 15)
Reformer Widodo Sworn In as Indonesia President
REUTERS
- Indonesia’s joko Widodo
took over as president of the
world’s third-largest democracy
yesterday with supporters’ hopes
high but pressing economic problems and skeptical rivals set to test
the former furniture businessman.
Widodo won a narrow victory
over a former general in a july election with promises of clean government and tackling entrenched interests. It was the first time in the
young democracy’s history that a
president was elected from outside
jakarta
the established military and political
elite.
“this is the time for us to unite
our hearts and hands, this is the
time for us...to reach and realize an
Indonesia that has political sovereignty, economic independence
and cultural character,” Widodo
said in his inaugural speech to a
packed parliament.
His priorities will be getting to
grips with slowing growth in the
resource-rich country, deteriorating government finances, a heavy
subsidy bill and flagging investor
interest.
U.S. Secretary of State john
kerry attended the inauguration
along with various asian leaders
including the prime ministers of
neighboring Malaysia and Singapore, the Sultan of Brunei and
australia’s prime minister.
the former mayor of the city of
Solo and governor of the capital, jakarta, is untested on the national
and international stages but already
faces resistance from the establishment to his transparent, can-do
Continued on page 2
Warning Seen as Riyadh Steps Up Beheadings
REUTERS
rIyadH,
Saudi arabia - Immediately after his sword falls, the Saudi
arabian executioner steps backward to avoid soiling his clothes
with the blood of the condemned
man, whose headless body can be
seen slumping over backward in
the shaky online film.
after perfunctorily checking the
white folds of his robe for flecks of
red, the executioner wipes his
blade with a tissue, which he drops
onto the corpse and walks away.
a sudden surge in public execu-
tions in Saudi arabia in the last two
months has coincided with a U.S.led bombing campaign against the
Islamic State insurgent group. this
has led to inevitable comparisons in
Western media between I.S.’s beheadings and those practiced in
Saudi arabia.
defenders of the Saudi death
penalty say beheadings, usually
with a single sword stroke, are at
least as humane as lethal injections
in the U.S. they deplore any comparison between the kingdom’s
execution of convicted criminals
The Daily Newspaper of Record Since 1993
and I.S.’ extrajudicial killing of innocent hostages.
But rights activists say they are
more concerned by the justice system behind the death penalty in
Saudi arabia than by its particular
method of execution. and critics of
the al Saud ruling family say the
latest wave of executions may have
a political message, with riyadh
determined to demonstrate its
toughness at a moment of regional
turmoil.
twenty-six people were beheaded
Continued on page 3