Alleged Thai spy goes on trial in Cambodia

8/12/2009
AFP/so


PHNOM PENH: A Thai national charged with spying on a visit by fugitive former Thai premier Thaksin Shinawatra went on trial in a Cambodian court on Tuesday, facing a maximum sentence of 15 years in jail.

Siwarak Chothipong, 31, an employee at the Cambodia Air Traffic Service, was taken into court under heavy security to face charges that he supplied Thaksin's flight schedule to the Thai embassy when the tycoon visited last month.

Presiding judge Ke Sakhan of Phnom Penh Municipal Court said Siwarak was being tried on charges linked to "national security and public safety" related to offences committed in the capital.

The defendant's mother and Thai diplomats were seen attending the trial.

Siwarak's arrest in Phnom Penh last month deepened a diplomatic crisis over Cambodia's appointment of Thaksin as an economic adviser and its refusal to extradite the ousted premier to Thailand.

Cambodia expelled the first secretary of Thailand's embassy in Phnom Penh after alleging that Siwarak had passed information to the diplomat. Thailand retaliated hours later.

Both countries earlier also withdrew their respective ambassadors in the dispute over Thaksin's appointment.

Thaksin was toppled in a coup in 2006 and is living abroad to avoid a two-year jail term for corruption, but has continued to stir up protests in his homeland.

Angered by his presence in Cambodia, Thailand put all talks and cooperation programmes on hold and tore up an oil and gas exploration deal signed during Thaksin's time in power.

Tensions were already high between Cambodia and Thailand, following a series of deadly military clashes over disputed territory near an 11th century temple on the two countries' border.