Police in Tbong Khmum town yesterday arrested a suspect in the rape and murder of a 4-year-old girl, police said.

Tbong Khmum’s deputy police chief Chan Sophin said the 15-year-old suspect was picked up and taken in for questioning, but declined to comment in detail, saying the investigation was ongoing.

“We have just apprehended the suspect, and we cannot confirm how he killed the girl because experts have not completed their post-mortem, but we just know it is a rape-murder case,” he said.

According to Soeut Sony, Tbong Khmum town police chief, the victim was the suspect’s neighbour, and had been found lying dead on Monday not far from her house.

James McCabe, operations director for the police’s Child Protection Unit, said the child was last seen playing at a neighbour’s house, and that the CPU would be “assisting Tbong Khmum [police] with some forensic examination, and assisting the family with the burial of the deceased”.