The Appeal Court on Thursday upheld the lower court’s verdict against six men who raped and killed a woman then threw her body away in Kakab commune in the capital’s Por Sen Chey district in 2015.

On July 14, 2016, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court sentenced two of them to 20 years in prison and the four others to 30 years for “murder with torture”, under Article 205 of the Criminal Code.

An appeal was then requested, after the convicts – Mam Vannan, Moeun Khey, Iem Loch, Nang Navy, Khat Suor and Chin Navy – denied having committed the crimes as determined by the lower court.

Appeal Court heard their case on February 13. And on Thursday, Judge Samrith Sophal announced his verdict with only some of the six men attending court.

“The Appeal Court has decided to uphold the Phnom Penh Municipal Court’s decision and to continue detaining the six convicts,” he read when announcing the verdict.

According to a court document, on July 25, 2015, the six men were drinking together. As the day went on, Navy and Vannan left to look for a prostitute at a restaurant in Kakab commune’s Ta Nguon village.

After they agreed each would pay $10 to the victim, the three of them went back to where the rest of the group were staying.

When they finished having sex, the men refused to give her the money as promised, resulting in an argument and in which the victim was strangled to death.

Upon murdering the victim, the men used a hammock string to wrap her body, carried it on the motorbike, and threw it away on an empty plot of land in Kakab commune’s Trapaing Lvea village.

The six men were arrested on the same day.