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Court date delayed for hostage-takers

The main suspect in the killing of a Canadian toddler during Thursday's hostage drama at the international school in Siem Reap, Chea Sokhum, is led from a jail cell for more questioning yesterday. PHOTO: AP

As families struggled to cope with the trauma of a hostage ordeal at an international school in Cambodia, police extended their questioning of four suspects yesterday, delaying their court appearance.

Police said they were trying to determine if others were involved in Thursday's school attack, in which a two-year-old Canadian boy was killed.

The alleged ringleader, 23-year-old Chea Sokhom, had been scheduled to face charges in court yesterday over the incident in Siem Reap, near the famed Angkor Wat temple complex.

But authorities decided to delay his court appearance by at least a day because they needed more time to interrogate him, said Ou Em, head of Siem Reap Province's police serious crime division.

"There are questions we need more time to look into, because he seems to have something to hide," Ou Em said. "There are some inconsistencies between his answers so far and what happened at the scene."

One question was why the hostage-takers demanded six guns, when only four men were found and arrested at the end of the crisis.

"You wonder about this, and so do I -- if there were two other men out there," Ou Em told reporters.

He said the four men will be charged with premeditated murder and kidnapping. The penalties for both range from 20 years to life in prison.

Chea Sokhom has said he had planned the raid as revenge against a South Korean man who had employed him as a driver, according to Prak Chanthoeun, the province's military police deputy commander.

Chea Sokhom said he had been humiliated when his employer struck him in a fit of anger, so he quit and planned to kill the man's two daughters. He had previously driven them to the school each day.

However, police have described the four as petty criminals with no purpose beyond extorting money. They also have arrested a fifth suspect, but his connection to the case was unclear.

Meanwhile, psychologists were encouraging people affected by the incident to undergo counseling. About 30 children, ranging from age two to six and coming from several different nations, were held hostage.

Five foreign psychologists who flew in after the crisis and three Cambodian health workers have set up a makeshift center at a Siem Reap restaurant to help the children and their parents.

"These are parents of young children, who for six hours have experienced extreme fear and despair," said Bart Janssens, medical coordinator for the group Medecins sans Frontieres, who came from Phnom Penh.

"The fact that their children have been witnessing such a high level of violence must have caused a high level of distress, and we hope we can give some answers immediately," Janssens said.

The attackers, armed with a single handgun, stormed Siem Reap International School on Thursday morning. They took students and teachers hostage and demanded money, weapons and a vehicle.

One of the attackers, apparently tense and impatient because the demands weren't being met quickly, reportedly told police he shot the Canadian toddler because he was crying more than the other children.

The ordeal ended when police cornered the van in which the attackers tried to escape, together with several child hostages and a reported US$30,000 given to them by negotiators.
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