PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Cambodia’s King Norodom Sihamoni has granted a royal pardon to former opposition leader Kem Sokha, wiping out a controversial treason conviction just weeks after he lost a final legal appeal to overturn the verdict.
The decision was made public on Monday via an official royal decree, effectively ending years of legal and physical confinement for the prominent politician.
Okay News reports that 72-year-old Kem Sokha, the co-founder of the dissolved Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), has been held under strict house arrest since March 2023. He was originally sentenced to a 27-year prison term after being found guilty of conspiring with a foreign power to overthrow the long-standing government of former Prime Minister Hun Sen.
The royal intervention arrives shortly after a Phnom Penh municipal appeal court upheld the lengthy sentence and affirmed a five-year post-sentence travel ban. According to the newly released decree, the royal pardon applies directly and exclusively to the original treason sentence, clearing his record.
The text of the official decree was notably endorsed and signed by former Premier Hun Sen in his current constitutional capacity as Senate President, acting on behalf of King Norodom Sihamoni while the monarch undergoes specialized medical treatment for prostate cancer.
Kem Sokha’s initial arrest and subsequent conviction had drawn widespread international condemnation, with the United States and various global human rights observers blasting the judicial process as an engineered crackdown built on fabricated conspiracy theories designed to eliminate the ruling Cambodian People’s Party’s (CPP) primary political competition.
The current Cambodian administration, led by Hun Sen’s son, Prime Minister Hun Manet, has consistently denied allegations of political persecution, maintaining that the state’s legal actions are strictly institutional measures taken against individuals who violate domestic laws.
