The suspects attacked four reporters and damaged two cars. Photo supplied
Tbong Khmum provincial police are searching for suspects who attacked four reporters and damaged two cars on Sunday. One of the reporters sustained injuries.
Provincial police chief Pen Roth told The Post on Tuesday that police officers are currently investigating the crime and cannot disclose details of the case other than that the victims came from outside Tbong Khmum.
“They followed one another from Snuol district in Kratie. They are not people [from] this province. There are four of them, but only two filed the complaint,” he said.
Memot district police chief Hong Kim Hoeun told The Post on Tuesday that police cannot release any names as they do not wish to tip off potential suspects.
The victims who filed the complaint are Ren Samnang, from PMN.TV.online, and Teng Norin, from the Esan Post.
Samnang told The Post on Tuesday that while his team was travelling from Snuol district to Phnom Penh, they became tired and took a break nearby the Boeung Chrong border checkpoint with Vietnam.
The reporters slept in two separate cars until about 12:30am, at which point Samnang woke to the sound of someone bashing his car mirror.
The reporters were surrounded by five to six people and a white Ssangyong SUV without a plate number. The attackers had an axe, a stick and hammer, which they used to hit the two cars. One of the attackers also hit Samnang, he said.
“They hit my car and hit me too. I drove the car for about 1km to escape from them, but they followed me in their SUV and tried to force me off of the street. It was not successful and their car went off the road. I was then able to escape,” he said.
Samnang said there were four victims in the incident. Only he sustained an injury. After hitting his car mirror, the suspects used a small tree stump to hit him on the left side of his ribs and his hand.
“My car sustained about 60 per cent damage. Another car had Ran Con, a reporter from Esan Post and Mouk Saren, from Empire News as a passenger. Their front [windshield], left and right mirrors were broken,” he said.
