Cambodia's ousted court president gets 3 years in jail for unlawful exploitation

A Cambodian court on Friday sentenced disgraced former Phnom Penh Municipal Court President Aing Mealdey to three years in prison with one year being suspended on the charge of "unlawful exploitation," according to a verdict.

The verdict pronounced by Kandal Provincial Court's Presiding Judge Nguon Vuthy said that the court decided to downgrade the charge against the former court president from embezzlement, which can carry a maximum prison term of 10 years, to unlawful exploitation, which carries a jail term of less than five years.

The court also ordered the convict to pay the fine of 5 million riel (1,250 U.S. dollars).

Mealdey, 59, was removed from his post in February last year after Prime Minister Hun Sen said in a public speech that he might have taken a multi-million-U.S. dollar bribe to release two suspects connected to a high-profile assassination case.

He was arrested by the Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) in August last year. After the investigation, the former court president was not found guilty of taking bribe in the assassination case, but he was found guilty of giving an Audi SUV confiscated from a suspected drug dealer in 2014 to his son.

In a trial session late last month, Mealdey recognized his mistake and requested the court to change the charge from embezzlement to unlawful exploitation.

It was the first time in the country that an ex-court chief was sentenced over corruption-related charge. Endit