The Phnom Penh Municipal Court convicted a man to 10 years in prison yesterday for the murder of senior navy officer Lieutenant Colonel Sin Hoy in Russey Keo district’s Chroy Changvar Commune in 2012.

The court dropped all charges against his would-be wife and mother-in-law, initially charged as accomplices.

Kor Vandy, presiding judge, said Chhay Thorn, 36, was found guilty, but “there was no proof to show that Reith Ratana, 45, and her daughter Sin Rathleychen, 20, committed the murder”.

Veng Chork, Chroy Changvar police chief, said that Hoy and Ratana but had been separated for more than a year when Ratana found out that her husband had raped their daughter multiple times since she was 13 years old.

Chork said Thorn, Rathleychen’s partner, had killed Hoy in a fight that he framed as a suicide.

Thorn claimed not to have killed the victim, as he did not know how to use a gun.