Police have arrested a 39-year-old man accused of molesting a seven-year-old girl in Phnom Penh’s Sen Sok district, its police chief Huor Mengvang said on Tuesday.

He said the suspect was a Cambodian national, a tuk-tuk driver and a security guard at the Condo 999 building. He had stayed in a rented room in the Condo 999 compound in the district’s O’Bek Ka’am village.

He was arrested on Tuesday after the victim’s mother filed a complaint to the authorities.

“The suspect confessed that he had indeed [assaulted the victim by penetration using his fingers] on his tuk-tuk after he picked up a couple of customers, the girl and her young brother from Doeum Kor Market."

“When we have finished interrogating him, we will send him to court. We cannot reveal the date as we are still in the process of interrogation,” Mengvang said.

The police chief said the girl’s mother resides in Phnom Penh and the seven-year-old is in her care. Before the incident on March 20, the girl and her sibling were playing on the tuk-tuk of the suspect, who was seeking customers.

Afterwards, the suspect brought the girl and the brother to the scene of the crime. He then took the children to their mother. During mealtime, the girl told her mother that she felt pain in her genital area but her mother did not believe it.

On Thursday, the girl told her mother a second time of the matter. She then took her daughter to see a doctor at the Child Protection Unit (CPU). After a check-up, she saw scratches on the girl’s genitals.

Huor Mengvang said on Monday the CPU escorted the girl and her mother to the Phnom Penh Referral Hospital for a second check-up.

She then filed a complaint to the police station in O’Bek Ka’am commune at 5:30pm later that day. Police apprehended the suspect and are holding him at the Sen Sok district police station.

Local authorities said the suspect had befriended the mother and the girl had often played on the tuk-tuk.