Nepali sentenced to 8 yrs on terrorism charges in Cambodia

5 Feb 2015, Kathmandu - The Supreme Court of Cambodia on Wednesday sentenced eight-year prison sentences to three foreign men, including a Nepali national, on charges of terrorism .

The three accused were sentenced to prison term after being convicted in threatening to bomb the US, UK and Australian embassies in 2011, wrote The Phnom

Penh Post, an Indonesia based newspaper.

Nepali national DP Paudel along with Bangladeshi nationals Rafiqul Eslami and Miah Muhammed Huymayan Kabir have been handed the jail terms. All three have denied the allegations against them.

“If I had plotted a bombing, I would have run away when police invited me for interrogation, but I did not, because I am innocent,” said Eslami after the court’s verdict, “There is no law in Cambodia, and some people are blind. If Cambodia had laws, the court would not sentenceus to eight years in prison.”

Dun Vibol, an attorney who once represented Kabir, said in 2012 that forensic police had determined that the letter was a fake, but since it was a terrorism case, “no one dared dismiss the charge”.

According to the The Phnom Penh Post, the embassies purported to have received the letters have repeatedly declined to comment on the particulars of the case. “The US Embassy has declined to comment on this regard,” reports the newspaper, “While requests for comment sent to the Australian and British embassies were not immediately answered.”