The Bak Kheng commune police officer who shot and killed his brother-in-law earlier this month in Chroy Changvar district was questioned by Kandal provincial police on Thursday after being transferred from Stung Treng, the province where he had escaped to.

The suspect allegedly committed the murder on April 15 at Koh Oknha Tei commune, Khsach Kandal district.

Kandal provincial deputy police chief Roeun Nara told The Post on Thursday that the 35-year-old, who is a military police officer, was questioned for murder and sent to the Kandal provincial court.

The suspect was detained on Wednesday and he led Kandal provincial authorities to recover the pistol he used to shoot the victim, which was hidden in Siem Reap.

The K59 model pistol, a Vietnamese copy of the Russian Makarov, is a semi-automatic. “There were five bullets in it,” Nara said. “He hid it in a pool before he escaped to Stung Treng.”

Stung Treng deputy police chief Horm Bunthel said before the suspect was detained on Tuesday, authorities from the national police and the Kandal provincial police office reported that the suspect was hiding in his province.

“Kandal authorities and the Ministry of Interior worked in collaboration with me. They had investigated for several days already and we detained the suspect,” Bunthel said.

Hor Vuthy, chief of the minor crimes bureau for the Stung Treng provincial police commissioner’s office said on Thursday that joint police forces detained him around 3:40pm in a villager’s cashew farm in Anlong Chrey commune, Thala Barivat district.

The suspect knew the owner of the farm but they are not relatives. The suspect has a friend in Siem Reap and he recommended the suspect to the farm owner.

“The suspect came to the cashew farm to hide from the authorities. In the operation, working in collaboration with joint task forces, it took six hours to find and arrest the suspect,” he said.

A short video clip taken by the police shows the suspect confessing: “I shot the victim only once and it was not intentional. I kept the gun in the pool in a house that sells gas.”

The suspect allegedly had a dispute with his wife and pointed the pistol at her but the victim came to stop him, according to Kandal provincial police office’s Facebook page.

“Why point the pistol at your wife?” the victim apparently asked. The suspect then pointed the gun to the victim’s throat and fired. The victim died at the scene. The dispute happened because the suspect was jealous.