A Cambodian court has sentenced former Khmer Rouge colonel Chhouk Rin in absentia to life imprisonment for the abduction and murder of three Western backpackers in 1994.
The ruling was in support of an appeal by the victims' families against an amnesty that allowed Chhouk Rin to walk free after he was found guilty of the charges in 2000.
Australian David Wilson (29), Briton Mark Slater (28), and Frenchman Jean-Michel Braquet (27) were murdered after two months in captivity following the ambush of the train they were travelling on in southern Cambodia.
The amnesty was granted in an earlier deal aimed at ending Cambodia's long-running civil war.
But Chhouk Rin snubbed the Cambodian courts, resulting in the trial in absentia, and he has failed to appear since the first hearing on August 28th. He said he would appeal.
"I didn't do it, so why have they sentenced me to life in prison? This is an injustice for me," he said by phone from his former base at Vine Mountain in southern Cambodia.
AFP