Daun Penh district police arrest a woman who threatened a monk at gunpoint at a pagoda in the capital on Saturday. Photo supplied
A woman who threatened a monk at gunpoint at a pagoda in the capital on Saturday, firing two shots into the air because she believed she had been cursed by holy water, was arrested and sent to Phnom Penh Municipal Court by district police on Sunday.
Daun Penh district police chief Tieng Chansa told The Post that the 29-year-old suspect threatened to shoot Sou Pisith, 32, at Saravoan Pagoda in his district. He said police arrested her on Saturday and sent her to court on Sunday afternoon.
“I have already filed a report and charged the suspect with illegal use of a weapon, but the prosecutor might charge her with another offence – it’s up to the prosecutor,” Chansa said.
Phan Sopheak, a member of the Saravoan Pagoda committee, told The Post on Sunday that according to the victim, the suspect arrived at the pagoda on Saturday afternoon by tuk-tuk and stormed into the monk’s room.
He said the woman was angry regarding a water blessing she had received from the monk two years previously.
She claimed the blessing had caused her to have a series of bad luck, Sopheak said.
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During the argument, she took out a gun and fired two shots into the air, causing panic in the pagoda.
Shortly afterwards, Daun Penh district police arrived and arrested the woman.
“According to what I heard after the incident, the woman seemed to be suffering from mental illness and was overly superstitious,” Sopheak said.
He said that about two years ago, she and a foreign man came to the pagoda to receive blessings from the monk at Saravoan Pagoda.
Sopheak said the woman claimed that after receiving the water, she and the foreign man began to have trouble in their relationship and her business also suffered problems.
“She apparently consulted a fortune teller who told her the monk who gave her the water blessing had used black magic to make her unlucky. That’s why she came here looking for revenge against the monk,” he said.
Police confiscated the handgun and some ammunition.
Sopheak said he was concerned that people will jump to the wrong conclusion about what had happened.
He said the problem was that the woman believed too strongly in the fortune teller, but whenever a dispute with a monk occurs, the public assumes that the monk did something wrong and does not listen to reason.
Phnom Penh Municipal Court spokesperson Ly Sophana could not be reached for comment on Sunday.
