Reporter Found Axed To Death In Car Boot

A journalist who exposed illegal logging and corruption has been found axed to death in the boot of his car in Cambodia.

Police found Hang Serei Oudom's blood-covered body in his Toyota Camry saloon, abandoned in a cashew nut plantation in Ratanakiri province, in the northeast of the country.

The 44-year-old reporter for local newspaper Vorakchun Khmer Daily had been missing since leaving his home on Sunday evening. His wife Em Channy, 20, said when she called him, a man answered "in a threatening voice" then hung up.

Colleagues had been worried about his safety after he wrote a series of articles about timber smuggling and corruption in Ratanakiri.

His latest story accused the son of a military police commander of smuggling logs in military-plated vehicles and extorting money from people legally transporting wood.

Senior police officer Song Bunthanorm confirmed police were investigating a murder case and not robbery. He said Mr Oudom was found with several axe wounds to his head.

"He wrote stories about forest crimes involving business people and powerful officials in the province," said Rin Ratanak, editor of Vorakchun Khmer Daily. "Most of his stories were about illegal logging of luxury wood."

Pen Bonnar, from rights group The Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association, said: "Before he was murdered, other journalists had warned him not to write critically about forest crimes."

He said illegal logging in Ratanakiri was linked to powerful individuals in Cambodia and was "a dangerous area" for reporters and activists to work in.

Cambodia has lost 16% of its forests in the past two decades because of illegal logging, according to the UN.

The country's prime minister, Hun Sen, has been heavily criticised for allowing foreign-owned firms to clear huge areas of land - even in protected zones - for everything from rubber plantations to hydropower dams.

Environmental watchdogs say many of these land concessions are linked to illegal logging, and Cambodian soldiers are routinely used to act as security guards for offending companies.

Mr Oudom's murder follows that of prominent environmentalist Chhut Vuthy, who was shot dead by a military policeman in April. He was killed after he refused to hand over pictures showing logging in the southwestern Koh Kong province.