Thai soldiers accused of burning alive teenage logger

Sep 14, 2009, 4:46 GMT

   Phnom Penh - A senior provincial official in Cambodia accused Thai soldiers of shooting a teenager engaged in illegal logging and then burning him, local media reported Monday.

   The district governor of Samrong district in Oddar Meanchey province in western Cambodia said 16-year-old Yon Rith was arrested by Thai soldiers for illegally felling trees in Thai territory.

   Governor Thon Nol said another teenager was also shot and seriously injured by Thai soldiers, but was carried back to Cambodia by villagers and taken to a provincial hospital.

   'We are looking for all measures to assist the victims as well as the actions of the Thai authorities,' Thon Nol told the Phnom Penh Post newspaper.

   He said Yon Rith's family had recovered the teenager's body and taken it back to their village for the funeral.

   Another official in the provincial government condemned the killing.

   'Why did they burn a person alive?' asked Pich Ratana. '[The armed forces] should have arrested them if they did anything wrong in Thailand.'

   The newspaper said the Thai embassy in Phnom Penh was not available to comment on the allegation.

   There have been other incidents in recent weeks of Cambodians being arrested by the Thai military for logging illegally across the common border. Two Cambodian men were shot dead by Thai soldiers last month in an act the Thai military described as self-defence.