The Appeal Court yesterday reduced by seven years the sentence of a woman found guilty in 2007 of procuring underage girls for an American pedophile later found guilty on seven counts of child sex in a US court.

Cheung Thysang, 36, was sentenced to 27 years in prison by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court in May 2007.

That sentence was reduced to 20 years yesterday. Nguon Im, director of the presiding council of the Appeal Court, said the court had decided to uphold Thysang’s guilty verdict but reduce her jail term.

“The Appeal Court decided to uphold the verdict of the municipal court except on one point, the sentence, which has been reduced from 27 years to 20 years,” he said.

In 2006, Thysang brought three girls aged between 10 and 11 years old and one woman, 20, to Michael Joseph Pepe, a 60-year-old English teacher living in Phnom Penh.

Pepe – who reportedly beat, drugged and raped the girls – was convicted in 2008 on pedophilia charges after several young Cambodian girls testified at a US court.

During the appeal hearing last Thursday, Cheung Thysang told the court that the girls’ parents had given her permission to take them to Pepe and asked for a reduced sentence.