The man on the run wanted by law enforcement is a former Thai navy soldier, local press reported. “We are investigating the motive. For the moment, we do not have much information, except that he works as a motorcycle taxi driver,” Sanong Sangmanee, head of police in the Bangkok district where the incident took place. Lim Kimya was killed by a man on a motorbike late Tuesday afternoon in a tourist district of the Thai capital Bangkok, where a bus from Siem Reap (Cambodia) had just dropped him off, along with his French woman.
Video surveillance images broadcast in the Thai press show the suspect traveling on a red scooter, in jeans and with a bag slung over his shoulder. Cambodian opposition figure Sam Rainsy, in exile in France, denounced the “political” assassination of his “colleague” by “Hun Sen’s henchmen”, whose family rules the kingdom with an iron fist. “We can see the hand of Hun Sen behind the assassination of Lim Kimya as we saw it behind the countless political crimes in Cambodia that have remained unpunished,” he wrote, in a message on Facebook published overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday.
Muzzled opposition. “Like me, Lim Kimya, like all the most active activists of the democratic opposition, was on the blacklist of Hun Sen who does not shy away from any crime. Several dozen members of the opposition were murdered in cold blood,” insisted the opponent. Lim Kimya has French nationality. He lived for “long years” in France, recalled Mr. Rainsy. Lim Kimya and Sam Rainsy were elected MPs in 2013 under the banner of the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), whose historic breakthrough had threatened the hegemony of then Prime Minister Hun Sen.
Hun Sen led the country for nearly forty years before resigning in 2023 in favor of his son, Hun Manet. Human rights groups have often denounced its repressive methods towards any critical voice, which keeps Cambodia among the worst performers in Asia when it comes to freedoms of expression or association. Hun Sen has regularly been accused of using the courts to muzzle his opponents. The only major opposition group, the CNRP was dissolved in 2017 by the Supreme Court, and its leaders prosecuted.
“Hateful” act. The spokesperson for the Cambodian government, Pen Bona, reminded AFP that the matter was the responsibility of the Thai authorities. The opposition “always accuses the government of everything, without basis or proof,” he insisted, denying any involvement from Phnom Penh. In recent years, Cambodian activists have fled to Thailand, but some have been arrested and deported to their home country. Thailand has been criticized in the past for sending refugees and asylum seekers back to countries where their safety was not guaranteed.
“Bangkok is not a safe place,” Elaine Pearson, Asia director of the NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW), told AFP. “While the motive is unclear at this time, we know that it comes at a time of increasing crackdowns against Cambodian opposition activists,” she continued. On the same day as the murder, Hun Sen, now president of the Senate, declared in a speech that he wanted a law that equates groups or individuals prosecuted for conspiring against his son’s government to “terrorists”.
The CNRP denounced in a press release the “hateful and inhumane” assassination of the former deputy. At the time of the dissolution of his party, Lim Kimya assured AFP that he was “never going to give up politics”. He continued to express his opinions on Facebook, and in his last post, on Friday, he denounced the failures of a New Year’s event organized by another of Hun Sen’s sons, Hun Many, currently deputy prime minister.
Montira RUNGJIRAJITTRANON, with Suy SE in Phnom Penh
© Agence France-Presse
