Source : The Cambodia Daily / July 19, 2016 by
After allegedly executing political analyst Kem Ley at a gas station in Phnom Penh, witnesses say Oeuth Ang strode down Mao Tse Toung and Sothearos boulevards, alternatingly brandishing and concealing a pistol as ever more motorbikes jumped on his trail.
He was confronted three times by security guards and police but did not stop moving until he reached a pagoda, where he was cornered and beaten bloody by a crowd that believed they had been following a thief, witnesses said.
Kem Ley’s body lies on the floor of a gas station convenience store in Phnom Penh after he was shot dead on the morning of July 10. (Siv Channa/The Cambodia Daily)
Since Kem Ley’s death on the morning of July 10, authorities have said little about the 30 minutes between the murder and the arrest of the suspected shooter, who provided his name as “Chuop Samlap, or “Meet Kill.”
Witnesses along the two busy boulevards, however, provided dramatic accounts of the gunman’s 1.5-km flight.
After the fatal shooting, the gunman burst out from the convenience store at the Caltex station and began running along Mao Tse Toung, pursued by customers and others, said laborer Ly Chhorng Sokha, who watched the incident unfold from a construction site across the road.
As he passed a Brown Coffee outlet directly behind the gas station, the gunman pointed his pistol at passersby as a warning against coming closer, Mr. Chhorng Sokha said.
“People were shouting ‘Thief!’” he said, adding that once the gun came out, “people backed off.”
