Former Cambodian opposition member Lim Kimya is killed in Bangkok

The killer was waiting next to a noodle stall on Tuesday afternoon, on a busy street in Bangkok where foreign tourists wander. Video footage published by the Thai police showed that when the bus, which was heading from the border with Cambodia, stopped, he walked towards it. Witnesses said three shots were heard like fireworks. The killer then casually returned to the noodle stall, where his motorcycle was parked, and left the crime scene.

The victim was Lim Kimya, 73, a former lawmaker with the Cambodian National People’s Rescue Party Crushed by the Hun family Which ruled the Southeast Asian country for four decades.

Thai police say they are still investigating the murder, and an arrest warrant has been issued for the suspect. But members of Cambodia’s beleaguered political opposition say their ranks have suffered dozens of arrests, imprisonments and assassinations, all because of their daring to stand up to Hun’s family.

They say Mr Lim Kimya’s killing reflects the kind of political violence that has turned Cambodia into a country where independent thinkers fear for their lives and internationally respected environmental defenders flee into exile.

Um Sam An, a former Cambodian National Rescue Party parliamentary colleague who lives in political exile in the United States, described Mr Lim Kimya’s death as a “political assassination”.

“Despots around the world are increasingly resorting to transnational repression,” said Sam Rainsy, the party’s former president who himself has been the subject of repeated assassination attempts.

Since he officially assumed his duties two years ago, succeeding his father, She is SinThis is what Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Manet, a graduate of the US Military Academy at West Point, demonstrated Little evidence of dilution The family’s tight grip on power. Arrests of opponents continued. On Tuesday, the day Mr. Lim Kimya was killed, Mr. Hun Sen, who still presides over Cambodia’s Senate, pushed for a law deeming political dissent tantamount to terrorism.

Mr Lim Kimya, who holds dual French and Cambodian citizenship, was traveling overland from Cambodia to neighboring Thailand with his French wife. When Thai paramedics tried to perform CPR to no avail, she stood close to him and his blood splattered on her face.

On Wednesday, the Thai Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for motorcyclist Ikalok Bynoi (41 years old), who it said was responsible for the fatal shooting.

Cambodian government spokesman Ben Puna said that since the killing occurred in Thailand, journalists’ questions should be directed to Thai authorities.

For more than three decades, Mr Lim Kimya was a civil servant in France, where he worked at the Ministry of Economy and Finance. He studied statistics in France, Cambodia’s former colonial power, after leaving his homeland in the 1970s when the country began its descent into chaos under the ultra-communist Khmer Rouge. He eventually returned to Cambodia and joined opposition political parties, including the Cambodian National Rescue Party

Mr Lim Kimya was elected to the National Assembly in 2013, four years before the party was dissolved by the Supreme Court of Cambodia.

Mr. Hun Sen was a junior official in the Khmer Rouge, which oversaw the killing of up to a quarter of Cambodia’s population. After its fall, he rose to power, eliminated his political rivals, and became the longest-serving prime minister in the world before handing over the reins to his eldest son. while Cambodia’s economy has developed rapidly In recent years, with China’s support, corruption and plunder have also worsened.

Last month, Mr Lim Kimya wrote on his Facebook page about The dramatic overthrow of Bashar al-AssadThe Syrian dictator who inherited power from his father. He pointed to the familial nature of the Assad political dynasty. He wrote about the horrors of tyranny. He did not have to make a direct comparison with Cambodia for the criticism to anger him.

“Lim Kimya was a highly educated, patriotic man who served his motherland and his second country, France,” said Kim Monofithia, Kimia’s exiled daughter. Soca ice creamHe is another former opposition leader under house arrest in Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, after being sentenced to 27 years in prison for treason.

Bangkok, Thailand’s capital, is a magnet for political dissidents from neighboring authoritarian states and, increasingly, a staging ground for deportations and forced deportations that human rights groups say are almost illegal. In November, Thai authorities forcibly returned seven Cambodians registered with the UN refugee agency to their homeland. After their return, six of the seven – one of whom was a child – were charged with treason in a Cambodian court.

Thailand is not a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention and therefore does not officially recognize individuals seeking political asylum. Thai authorities have returned asylum seekers and others who have tried to seek asylum here to Vietnam, Laos, China and other countries with repressive governments.

Hundreds of Cambodian dissidents have flocked to Thailand in recent months, but last year’s forced deportations and the killing of Mr Lim Kimya have spooked them.

Khem Monikosal, 52, a political activist, fled persecution in Cambodia two years ago. He said he barely left the room he took refuge in in Thailand, despite being registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. He expressed his concern about the possibility of political assassinations. Then came the murder of Mr Lim Kimya on Tuesday.

“As an asylum seeker in Thailand, I am very concerned about my safety,” he said. “There are murder plots planned.”

Sun Narin He contributed reporting from Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and Muktita Suhartono From Bangkok.