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Jailed Thai Soldiers Receives Embassy Visit


Thai Embassy officials will be allowed to visit a former Thai soldier in a Cambodian military prison, after the man was sentenced to 20 years for planting landmines along the border, defense officials said.

Earlier this month, a military court found Suphab Wong Prakna, 39, guilty of planting mines in Anlong Veng, a former Khmer Rouge redoubt on the Thai border.He was arrested in February 2009 with mines and explosives on his person.

Cambodia and Thailand are engaged in a protracted military standoff, that has left at least eight dead, and the trial raised questions of whether both sides are mining the border.

Suwat Kaewsook, a senior adviser at the Thai Embassy in Phnom Penh, is expected to visit the military prison on Friday afternoon.

Prakna’s lawywer, Sam Sok Kong, said he believed the sentencing was fair, given the evidence against his client and the confession he gave. The court could have given the accused from 30 years to life imprisonment, he said.

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