Guilty Verdict On Spaniard Ignores Police

PHNOM PENH : A judge at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court convicted a Spanish national of intentional murder on Wednesday and sentenced him to 10 years in jail, despite the court prosecutor and police having argued during the trial that the “victim” had not, in fact, been murdered, The Phnom Penh Post reported. 

 

Ricardo Blundell Perez, 40, was arrested on August 11 last year after police found the decomposing body of his British friend, John Peter Connell, at his rental house in Phnom Penh’s Daun Penh district.

Connell died on July 17 of a drug overdose and was not murdered, Police Lieutenant Loeuk Um, who examined the body, told the court during a hearing on November 28.

Perez claims he found Connell dead in his living room after leaving him at his home for a few hours following a drinking session.

He admits to having hid the body for weeks in his apartment but said this was because he was scared of being either charged with murder or arrested for illegally living in Cambodia if he reported the body.

At the conclusion of the trial, deputy court prosecutor Um Sopheak had appealed to the judge to change the charge to “hiding a body”, because he did not believe murder had been committed.

The Post reported on November 29 that the murder charge had been dropped, but Sopheak explained yesterday that the judge had actually not heeded his advice.

Yesterday, judge Chuon Soreasy convicted Perez of intentional murder and sentenced him to 10 years in prison.  Perez said he would appeal the verdict next week.