Banteay Meanchey: The 11 suspects involved in a shootout with police authorities on Saturday in Banteay Meanchey have been charged in court. Around 30 people, including Thai nationals, started a fight in a bar facing a casino in Poipet. The fight has wounded three police officers who intervened between two groups believed to be Cambodians and Thai gangsters. The suspects were violently throwing glass bottles on each other, which led the Poipet City Gendarmerie to intervene. But the suspects stubbornly continued to fight, even shooting with pistols towards the authorities.

On Monday afternoon, some of the perpetrators were detained and sent to court. The violent bar fight at Poipet City caused three militaries to be hurt, one seriously wounded near the mouth. Since then, a crackdown force started around the city to find all suspects involved at the shootout. The manhunt is being led by Prosecutor of the Provincial Court, Keut Vannareth, who has already arrested eleven perpetrators. Cars and knives were confiscated and will be sent to Poipet Military Police Base for further investigation.

Brigadier General Born Bin says that after being interrogated by police forces, the eleven detained offenders confessed that were a total 20 people participated in the fight. The Poipet Military Police has been searching for the rest of suspects, while the Thai criminals have fled to Thailand, escaping the Cambodian forces. If the detained suspects were proved to be guilty, they will have to face two to five years in jail under the crime of “intentional violence with aggravating circumstances”.