Lim Kimya was killed in January by Ekkalak Paenoi while visiting Bangkok with his wife, Anne-Marie Lim.
A court in Thailand has sentenced a Thai gunman to life imprisonment for killing a Cambodian opposition politician in Bangkok, a murder opposition figures have accused Phnom Penh’s powerful former leader Hun Sen of ordering.
French national Lim Kimya, a former opposition politician in Cambodia, was shot dead on January 7 by Ekkalak Paenoi, a former marine, as the ex-MP visited Bangkok with his wife and brother.
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Ekkalak was arrested in neighbouring Cambodia a day after the shooting and confessed to committing the murder in a livestreamed video.
“The actions of the first defendant caused harm to the plaintiff,” the Bangkok Criminal Court judge said on Friday. “Since he confessed, the court reduced the sentence to life imprisonment.”
The court had earlier handed Ekkalak a death sentence for premeditated murder, and also found him guilty of carrying a weapon and discharging a firearm in public, Nadthasiri Bergman, a lawyer for Lim Kimya’s widow, Anne-Marie Lim, told the Reuters news agency.
Ekkalak was also ordered to pay compensation of 1.79m baht ($55,162) to the victim’s family.
The sentencing was issued three days after the trial began, with an examination of witnesses, including Lim.
“Anne-Marie is probably satisfied with today’s verdict, but she is still questioning who ordered the crime,” Bergman told reporters outside the court on Friday.
“She wants authorities to get to the bottom of it.”
“We know the suspects are in Cambodia, and [the Thai government] could help push the extradition process to bring them to justice,” Bergman added.
The judge did not offer details about the killer’s motive or a possible mastermind behind the murder.
Thai police said in January they were also seeking to arrest Ly Ratanaksmey and Pich Kimsrin, two Cambodian nationals wanted in connection with the killing, who have fled Thailand.
The court on Friday dismissed the charges against a second defendant, Thai national Chakrit Buakhil, who was accused of driving Ekkalak to the Cambodian border after the shooting.
“He was only a driver and did not know what was happening,” Chakrit’s lawyer, Natchapong Moosakopas, told the AFP news agency.
The two defendants walked into the court on Friday morning wearing prison uniforms, their hands cuffed together.
Some Thai media reported this year that Ekkalak was paid 60,000 baht ($1,800) for the killing, but police said he claimed he did not receive payment and took the job “to pay a debt of gratitude”.
Lim Kimya was a member of the Cambodia National Rescue Party, a popular opposition movement that was dissolved by a court ahead of a 2018 election because of an alleged treason plot, which it dismissed at the time as a fabrication.
Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Manet has denied his government or his father Hun Sen’s involvement in Lim Kimya’s murder.
The former premier led Cambodia for nearly four decades until 2023. Western nations and rights groups have long accused his government of using the legal system to crush the opposition.
Thailand and Cambodia have a long history of tensions, which sharply escalated in July during a five-day conflict over undemarcated points along their 817km (508-mile) land border.
At least 43 people were killed, and more than 300,000 people on both sides were displaced during the worst fighting between the neighbours in more than a decade, which came to an end after a ceasefire was brokered by Malaysia on July 28.
