The accused Liv Bunthoeun at the Por Sen Chey district police station in 2020. POLICE
The Supreme Court heard the appeal of a woman accused of cutting the face a 5-year-old girl with a knife in July 2020 in Samraong Kraom commune’s Tek Panho village of Phnom Penh’s Por Sen Chey district. A lower court sentenced her to 12 years in prison.
According to a statement read out by Presiding Judge Khim Ponn in the courtroom on May 9, the accused, 43-year-old Liv Bunthoeun, lived in the village where the incident took place.
On July 14, 2020, the victim, Las MaviLiya, was playing with the son of the accused in the Borey Piphup Thmey Chouk Va II gated community in the village. The son argued with the girl, who became angry and threw a stone at him, causing his head to bleed.
Seeing her son crying and his head covered in blood, the woman was enraged, entering the victim’s house and cut her face with a sharp knife, causing serious injuries.
Shortly afterwards, the girl’s family took her to hospital and then lodged a complaint at the commune police station.
The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on November 25, 2020, sentenced the woman to 12 years in prison on charges of torture and aggravated assault under Article 211 of the Criminal Code. The accused was also ordered to pay 200 million riel ($50,000) to the girl’s parents.
The accused then filed a grievance to the Phnom Penh Municipal Court of Appeal, which heard the case and upheld the lower court’s decision on February 12 last year.
During the May 9 hearing, Supreme Court deputy prosecutor-general Pen Sarath concluded in front of the accused and her defence lawyer that after studying the case and the Appeal Court’s ruling, the accused was guilty as charged.
“The Phnom Penh Appeal Court convicted the woman in accordance with the law. I request that the Trial Chamber uphold the ruling,” he said.
Defence lawyer Puth Theavy accepted that the act happened and could not be denied, but said the charges did not seem to match the offence. According to the charge of torture, Theavy said, the victim must be held in confinement, but this incident had taken place in public.
“I request that the charge of torture and aggravated assault be amended to intentional violence and I ask the Supreme Court to return the case to the Phnom Penh Municipal Appeal Court,” Theavy said.
