South Korea envoy may face arrest in ACU investigation

Suth Dina, the Cambodian ambassador to South Korea, speaks at an event last year in South Korea. Facebook

South Korea envoy may face arrest in ACU investigation

ppp Mon, 4 April 2016

Mech Dara

Cambodia's controversial ambassador to South Korea, Suth Dina, was today brought in for questioning by the Anti-Corruption Unit in relation to a corruption investigation and faces the possibility of arrest, ACU president Om Yentieng confirmed.

“We have brought him to hear his answers. We took him from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at about 8am,” Yentieng said this morning.

Asked about the investigation, Yentieng said: “First we have received a lot of complaints from workers and secondly, from officials at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs both in Phnom Penh and in Seoul have filed complaints too. Thirdly we have seen complaints on Facebook.”

Yentieng said today’s questioning followed two inspections by the Ministry of Economy and Finance to audit spending at the Cambodian embassy in South Korea.

ACU investigators had also visited South Korea and travelled around Cambodia to pursue the complaints, he said.

“We have sent our six officials to Seoul, South Korea and five provinces … to meet complainants, witnesses and victims and we also interviewed His Excellency Suth Dina to answer [questions] once before in Seoul. This is the second time we are hearing his answers.”

He said the unit would continue to question Dina for “four or five hours” then make an announcement as to whether he would be detained this afternoon.

However, later in the interview, he seemingly implied that the ACU had already decided they must detain Dina, and had “48 hours to make a report and send it to the court”.

Dina, posted to Seoul in 2014, had revealed he was under investigation in a Facebook post earlier this month, in which he appealed to Prime Minister for help to safeguard his position and deliver him “justice” from the “setup”.

Criticising the probe, Dina said he had “sacrificed everything” to service Cambodia and complained “but I have to hear with a setup scenario of defamation and slander and having people sent to audit me two or three times”.

Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Chum Sounry has not responded to a request for comment. Contacted last week, he said he had “no information” about the probe.

Dina has long come under attack for frequently warning Cambodia’s large diaspora in South Korea to stay away from opposition activities in the country, threatening them with arrest and deportation.

Most recently, he came under scrutiny after declaring on social media that he was working with South Korean “special intelligence” to track anti-government migrants working illegally in the country.

South Korean authorities contacted by the Post said they had no information of a joint operation.