Cambodia’s Supreme Court has upheld eight-year prison sentences for three foreigners convicted more than four years ago of threatening to bomb the US, UK and Australian embassies.
Bangladeshi nationals Rafiqul Eslami and Miah Muhammed Huymayan Kabir, and Nepalese national DP Paudel reacted angrily to Wednesday's verdict, protesting as they have from the beginning against what the Phnom Penh Post called "tenuous" evidence originally used to convict them in 2011.
That conviction was based on a letter allegedly signed by the three. The letter claimed they were members of terrorist organisation al-Qaeda and were plotting to bomb the embassies. The letter's veracity has been questioned by both Cambodian police and Nepalese officials.
"If I did it, I would have run away when police invited me for interrogation, but I did not, because I am innocent," Eslami was quoted as saying. "There is no law in Cambodia, and some people are blind. If Cambodia had laws, the court would not sentence us to eight years in prison."
National Police spokesman Kirt Chantharith was quoted in 2010 saying the letter writer was a jealous business rival of the three defendants.
The US embassy in Phnom Penh refused to comment on the Supreme Court's decision while the UK and Australian embassies could not be reached for comment.