Airports fare well in ICAO audit, official says

An inspection of Cambodia’s airports last week by a visiting delegation from the UN’s International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) turned up only minor issues, all of which are easily correctable, a senior aviation official said yesterday.

Sinn Chanserey Vutha, spokesman for the State Secretariat of Civil Aviation (SSCA), said preliminary results of the ICAO audit, which inspected international airport facilities in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap between October 20 and 28, were generally positive.

“Following the audit, we received a ‘fair-good’ rating from ICAO” he said. “The full comprehensive report will be released after 60 days, and we hope that ICAO will give us enough time to correct the issues,” he said.

Vutha declined to provide any details on the issues raised, but said the ICAO typically grants audited civil aviation bodies two years to correct the issues raised in an audit before taking further action.

Cambodia fared poorly during its last full audit by the ICAO in 2007, with all criteria ranked substantially below international standards. Areas including navigation services and accident investigations were graded at almost 40 percent below international safety levels.

A group of civil aviation experts that inspected Cambodia’s airports in April found minor security lapses, advising the SSCA to hire and train more security personnel and strengthen airport fences to ensure compliance with international security guidelines.

According to Vutha, the SSCA acted on the recommendations of the experts.

“We still have some problem areas, but they are minor issues, and this is normal as not everything can be perfect,” he said.

“Anyways, this is the positive result for us, which means we [are operating according to international] aviation standards.”

He said the positive result would boost the confidence of airlines and encourage them to transport passengers and cargo to and from Cambodian airports.

By contrast, a poor audit result can land a country on ICAO’s blacklist, with potentially damaging consequences to aviation and tourism.

Annual cold spell on the way: weather official

Annual cold spell on the way: weather official

A mother and child bundle up in beanies earlier this year during a brief stint of cold weather. Sreng Meng Srun

Winter – such as it is – is coming, a Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology official warned yesterday.

Ministry spokesman Mao Hak said yesterday that seasonal rains are expected to taper off in mid-November, with cooler winds sweeping into the Kingdom from Siberia and Tibet, promising a “winter” even cooler than last year’s, in which some areas saw temperatures as low as 18 degrees.

While the brief annual cool spell offers relief to some, Hak warned that those at high risk of illness should take extra care.

“So the people living in high and lowland areas should be aware and pay attention to the health problems, especially in children and old people, that may be caused by the cool weather,” he said.

សង្គមស៊ីវិលប្រតិកម្មជុំវិញការបង្ហោះខ្សែអាត់សម្លេងសន្ទនាស្នេហាតាមទូរស័ព្ទ

សង្គមស៊ីវិលប្រតិកម្មជុំវិញការបង្ហោះខ្សែអាត់សម្លេងសន្ទនាស្នេហាតាមទូរស័ព្ទ

Chroy Changvar residents stop OCIC fence layers

Chroy Changvar residents stop OCIC fence layers

About 10 villagers from Chroy Changvar district’s Prek Tasek commune stopped workers of a development firm from clearing their land to build a fence demarcating a planned satellite city.

Commune resident Chheng Heak said six workers from the Overseas Cambodia Investment Corporation (OCIC), which is developing the project, dug holes on her land and were attempting to install fence posts.

“If there was no assistance from my neighbours, my land would have been fenced off,” she said, adding that last Friday two excavators had similarly attempted to clear the land, but were thwarted by villagers.

Villagers on the peninsula are currently at loggerheads with City Hall, which has given them until mid-November to give up 90 percent of their land to the project or accept $15 per square metre as compensation for leaving.

OCIC project manager Touch Samnang said the group was continuing their work and that the ongoing dispute was between the villagers and local authorities. “We will keep working and building a road and drainage system as per the plan,” he said.

City Hall spokesman Mean Chanyada said he was unaware of yesterday’s events.

Wanted Australian released from prison and deported

Wanted Australian released from prison and deported

An Australian man, wanted by police in his native country on kidnapping and torture charges, was released from Siem Reap provincial prison and deported to Thailand last week and has since been pictured enjoying the nightlife in Bangkok.

Accompanied by immigration officials to the departure gate at Siem Reap International Airport, Guido James Eglitis, 70, flew to Thailand at 9:30pm on October 29, hours after completing his sentence and being released from custody, Siem Reap Immigration Police chief Chea Kimsan said yesterday.

Eglitis was arrested in October 2015 and subsequently convicted of assaulting UK national David Scotcher during a home invasion in Siem Reap. At the time of his arrest, it emerged that Eglitis had also been charged in Queensland for the 2007 abduction and torture of a businessman in Brisbane, but had reportedly skipped on bail.

In the wake of his capture, Queensland police told the Post they were “making enquiries into the possible extradition” of a 68-year-old suspect in the kidnapping case, in which Eglitis allegedly posed as an Australia Federal Police officer.

Kimsan said that although Australian police had visited Eglitis, no extradition request was lodged.

“I asked them about [the case in Australia], however they did not have any official documents related to what he had done in Australia, so we could not do anything,” Kimsan said.

Though he was detained just over a year ago, Kimsan said the provincial court had determined Eglitis’s 14-month sentence was complete. Court officials were unreachable yesterday.

“After he received his punishment by the law . . . he can go anywhere, but not Cambodia,” Kimsan said, adding that Eglitis was expelled under Article 34 of Cambodia’s Law on Immigration.

Brett Hastie, a New Zealand man arrested alongside Eglitis, was released without charge after authorities determined Eglitis had posed as an Australian police officer in enlisting his help to “arrest” Scotcher, Kimsan said.

Queensland Police’s media team did not respond by press time yesterday.

The Brisbane Times yesterday published photos of Eglitis at a bar in Bangkok on Monday taken by witnesses who had seen him drinking in the area.

The site said Eglitis had also been sentenced to four years’ prison in the US on fraud charges in 1988.

The fugitive has also been linked to the suspicious death of Canadian journalist Dave Walker, whose decomposed body was discovered in the Angkor archaeological park in 2014.

According to Walker’s friends and family, Eglitis misrepresented himself as an investigator probing Walker’s death on behalf of Cambodian, US, Australian and Canadian governments.

Beaten lawmaker to join Hun Manet suit

Cambodia National Rescue Party lawmaker Nhay Chamroeun has engaged a lawyer to join a lawsuit in the US against the prime minister’s eldest son, Lieutenant General Hun Manet, and the Cambodia government.

The attorney pursuing the case, Morton Sklar, said Chamroeun had instructed him to sue the scion as well as the Cambodian state over his assault at the hands of members of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Personal Bodyguard Unit outside the National Assembly on October 26 last year.

Sklar said he will attach Chamroeun’s complaint to the original case lodged by jailed opposition official Meach Sovannara, another dual citizen, who accuses Manet and the government of torture and wrongful imprisonment related to his incarceration for involvement in a violent 2014 anti-government protest.

“Nhay Chamroeun has officially authorized me to act as his attorney, and to join him as an additional Plaintiff,” Sklar said via email, adding the amendment would be filed soon with the federal district court for the Central District of California in Los Angeles.

Sklar claimed the violent attack against Chamroeun would bolster his team’s argument that Manet and the government were not protected by the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act because the allegations fell within an exemption concerning torture and terror acts committed against US citizens.

Chamroeun, a dual US-Cambodian citizen, and fellow CNRP lawmaker Kong Saphea were set upon by a mob of at least 16 men who emerged from a pro-government rally. Three soldiers from the Prime Minister’s Bodyguard Unit were convicted, though evidence pointed to wider involvement from the elite corps, of which Hun Manet is a deputy commander.

Manet’s lawyers in the US have moved to dismiss the case, claiming that he was not properly served and is not subject to the court’s jurisdiction.