Cambodian dissident dies behind bars

By Lauren Crothers

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AA) - The brother of the leader of a self-exiled Cambodian dissident group has died in prison at the age of 30 while serving a seven-year sentence in a case that rights groups said was politically motivated.

Yean Yoeurb was arrested in Thailand in March 2013 alongside six other people and sent over the border to Cambodia.

Thirteen people were tried and convicted -- six of them in absentia -- for allegedly plotting to overthrow the government.

Yoeurb’s brother, Sam Serey, has lived in Denmark to avoid arrest since 2010.

Serey heads the Khmer National Liberation Front, a group that seeks to “free the Cambodian people from the Vietnamese neo-colony and dictatorship regime under [Cambodian Prime Minister] Hun Sen”.

Hun Sen, in return, has branded the group as a terrorist organization.

In an email to Anadolu Agency on Thursday, Serey said he’d been informed of his younger brother’s death behind bars and alleged that his demise was politically motivated.

On Thursday, the Cambodia Daily quoted two deputy directors from the general department of prisons as confirming the death of a prisoner Wednesday night. One of the officials said he “received the name of a prisoner from Prey Sar prison, Yean Yoeurb, and he died because of a heart attack”.

Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Asia division, told Anadolu Agency on Friday that “the death of a political prisoner like Yean Yoeurb always raises questions” and that there needed to be a “professional and fully impartial post-mortem”.

“If there is any indication of foul play, anyone involved must be thoroughly investigated and held accountable,” Robertson said. “All this should not detract from the fact that he should never been in prison to start with, and that these charges were politically motivated persecution of a person expressing his beliefs that the government didn't like."

In October, Serey established the “Khmer National Government in exile” and listed Yoeurb as the vice-minister of economics and finance despite his imprisonment.

“I love my brother,” Serey wrote Thursday. “I am very sad about this.”