Probe Urged İnto Missing Teen Shot At Cambodian Protest

Twenty months after a teenage boy was last seen bleeding on a Phnom Penh street as security forces opened fire crush a series of garment strikes, fresh calls have been made for a proper investigation into his disappearance.



Released to coincide with the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, a statement by the Cambodian Center for Human Rights on Sunday said the mystery surrounding the whereabouts of Khem Sopath deserves a proper explanation.



He has been presumed dead since he was last seen on Jan. 3, 2014.



CCHR said the Cambodian government acceded to an international UN convention on the protection of all people from enforced disappearances on June 27, 2013 -- just months before the disappearance of the 16-year-old.



That convention requires states to "take all appropriate measures to search for, locate and release disappeared person and, in the event of death, to locate, respect and return their remains."



Four other workers were killed on Veng Sreng Street that January day, with scores of others injured.



"Khem Sophath was last seen in the mass of strikers, where he laid with a gunshot wound, only to become missing moments later," CCHR said. "The circumstances of his disappearance offer reasonable grounds to suspect that this constitutes a case of enforced disappearance."



In addition, the group said, government claims of a supposed investigation have not yielded any transparent results and DNA tests carried out on a set of remains allegedly did not belong to Sopath.



"They have not provided any details into the investigation or how they conducted the forensic examinations to determine the remains did not correspond to those of Khem Sophath," CCHR said. "Khem Sophath's family also said that the authorities have not sought DNA samples from them, which are required to conduct such tests, and is still waiting to know the fate of their relative."      



Calls to Interior Ministry spokesman General Khieu Sopheak and Council of Ministers spokesman Phay Siphan were unsuccessful Sunday. - Phnum Penh