PHNOM PENH, June 16 (Xinhua) -- Four local journalists in northeast Cambodia's Ratanakiri Province were sent to the provincial court on Friday for allegedly extorting money from a wood transporter, a military police chief said.
Brigadier General Kim Rasmey, chief of Ratanakiri Provincial Military Police, said the four journalists including a female were caught on Wednesday following a complaint filed by a truck driver who transported wood poles for pepper plantation.
The detainees included Yon Tith from the Khmer Youth News, Peng Soktharak from the CPN Online, Mey Menghuy from the Phnom Penh News, and Chan Nara from the TNM Online, he said. These media outlets are little known in the country.
"Yon Tith was arrested for demanding the wood transporter to pay him 500 U.S. dollars monthly, as the three others were nabbed for extorting 600 U.S. dollars from the wood transporter," Rasmey told Xinhua via telephone.
He said the group had confessed to the crime during an interrogation.
Under the country's Criminal Code, the act of extortion could face between two and five years in prison if convicted, he added.
