The former director of a Vietnamese-owned rubber firm was sentenced in absentia to two and a half years in prison by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Monday, and ordered to pay $800,000 in compensation for defrauding his former employer, a court official said yesterday.

According to a court clerk who spoke on condition of anonymity, Dai Vantean, 43, was ordered to compensate Day Dong Yoeung Co, whose Cambodian branch he once managed, for falsifying signatures and documents.

“The court has also ordered him to return a total of 4,889 hectares of land concessions in Ratanakkiri province, the clerk said.

Vantean was arrested in early March based on a complaint from Day Dong Yoeung’s owner, accusing him of falsifying documents to transfer the nearly 4,900 hectares from Day Dong Yoeung to his own company, Botr Sampoan, in 2011.

He was released on bail in April and has been at large ever since.