PHNOM PENH, Sept 22, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – An Australian filmmaker who received
a royal pardon from Cambodia will be deported Saturday, immigration officials
said, a day after he was released from a six-year sentence in a case Human
Rights Watch has called “a ludicrous charade”.
James Ricketson, 69, was given jail time three weeks ago for “espionage and
collecting harmful information that could affect national defence” by a Phnom
Penh court.
He was then issued a royal pardon on Friday, after strongman premier Hun
Sen requested it from the Cambodian king.
“We will deport him today,” Keo Vanthan, spokesman for the immigration
department, told AFP. “We are looking for a flight for him.”
Ricketson’s lawyer Kong Sam Onn confirmed this, adding that the
Australian’s visa to stay in Cambodia had expired.
The embattled filmmaker had been in prison since last June, after footage
emerged of him using a drone to film a rally of the now-defunct opposition
Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP).
His six-day trial — which rights groups have slammed as a farce — showed
him to be defiant and combative, and featured a surprise appearance by
Hollywood director Peter Weir who served as a character witness for his
friend.
The prosecution accused Ricketson of working as a filmmaker in Cambodia as
a front for spying activities, but the verdict failed to name which country
he was allegedly spying for.
His truncated prison term came after a series of activists and opposition
lawmakers were freed in the weeks following July’s national election, which
critics have said was neither free nor fair.
The CNRP, which had served as the sole legitimate opposition force to Hun
Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party, was dissolved in the lead-up to the
controversial poll, clearing the path for the CPP to take all 125 parliament
seats.
This effectively rendered Cambodia a one-party state, which the
international community has decried as a death knell to democracy.
After the poll Hun Sen — who has been in power for more than three decades
— returned to a pattern of easing up on dissent.
Ricketson’s pardon comes just days before Hun Sen is scheduled to travel to
New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly.