Prime Minister Hun Sen addresses grade ‘A’ students from across the country on Tuesday. SPM
Prime Minister Hun Sen spoke of the “injustice” committed by five unnamed individuals with the honorific Oknha against a female TV presenter last year, as the government pushes ahead with drafting a royal decree to rein in those who hold the title.
Speaking at a May 3 meeting with 1,753 high school students who achieved ‘A’ grades, the premier said that had he not intervened in the issue, the innocent TV presenter and student would now be in jail.
Though he did not name it, Hun Sen was apparently referring to the widely publicised case of Mean Pich Rita being sued by tycoon Heng Sear, who held the Oknha honorific, using a fabricated story.
A former Miss Grand Cambodia contestant, Pich Rita, 20, was initially placed in pre-trial detention in May on the charge of theft with aggravating circumstances for allegedly stealing Sear’s iPhone and attacking him with a knife.
However, she filed a countersuit against Sear, 60, for attempted rape, in Phnom Penh’s Tuol Kork district on May 4. She was released on bail on May 13 after being provided legal assistance from Hun Sen’s volunteer lawyer group.
The prime minister noted there had been criticism of his intervention in the case by some, who dismissed it as a “love affair”.
“If this is just a love affair, I don’t have to intervene, but this is an issue of injustice. A female student was [wrongly put] in jail due to the intervention of five Okhnas. I cannot stay quiet on this,” he said, blasting those who criticised his actions as “beasts”.
“How much did you know about the story? I was protecting my people – why did you say I ‘intervened’ in a love affair? If you show yourself to be a beast, just keep to yourself and don’t drag me into it,” he said.
According to Hun Sen, five Oknhas had conspired with each other to embellish the facts of the story and to discredit Pich Rita’s testimony. Sear’s children had also allegedly edited pictures of Pich Rita and their father to suggest they had been engaging in sexual activity.
Soeng Sen Karuna, spokesperson of rights group ADHOC, said Hun Sen “made the right point” by highlighting the miscarriage of justice, adding that he encouraged the government to review a person’s history before conferring to them the Oknha title.
He observed that some who had unsavoury backgrounds managed nonetheless to obtain the title, and urged the government to apply the law equally to all who commit wrongdoing, regardless of their status.
“It doesn’t mean that, by having an Oknha title, one can do whatever they want against the law and walk away freely. No one is above the law. If there is enough evidence, one must be punished accordingly… or it will be seen as the legal system having double standards,” he said.
The Ministry of Interior is currently preparing a royal decree regarding the Oknha title, according to its secretary of state Bun Honn.
Honn told The Post on May 3 that the royal decree concerns the rights and duties of Oknha in social affairs. It will also set the standard for management, requests for and stripping of the title, he said, but declined to give further details, stressing that it was in preliminary stages of discussion.
When asked, the interior ministry said it does not keep track of the number of Okhnas in Cambodia. However, estimates have placed the figure at over 1,000 issuances of the title from 1994 to 2020.
In 2017, Prime Minister Hun Sen issued a new sub-decree raising the minimum donation required to be conferred the Okhna title from $100,000 to $500,000.
