The Thai authorities accused an adviser to Hun Sen of hiring the gunman who killed a former Cambodian opposition figure in Bangkok last week.

Lim Kimya was gunned down by a motorcyclist as he arrived in Bangkok by bus from Cambodia with his French wife.

Lim Kimya, 74, a former lawmaker of the now-defunct Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), was shot and killed in Bangkok, Thailand, by Thai national Ekkalak Phaenoi. After the attack, Ekkalak fled to Cambodia but was captured by Battambang authorities and handed over to their Thai counterparts.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet denied on Monday his government and father, former leader Hun Sen, were involved in the killing of an opposition politician in downtown Bangkok this month.

In my article in The Geopolitics dated January 17, 2025, titled “The deafening silence of Hun Sen and the Cambodian government following the assassination of opposition figure Lim Kimya in Bangkok (January 7)”,

Thai national Ekalak Paenoi, center, the prime suspect in the killing of former lawmaker of the dissolved Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) Lim Kimya, is escorted by police officers at the police airport in Bangkok on Jan 11, 2025, after returning from Cambodia. (Photo: AFP)

The Prime Minister emphasised that if the government had orchestrated the murder, they would not have apprehended the suspect and handed him over to Thai authorities.

Thailand is growing particularly dangerous for foreigners seeking protection.The recent fatal shooting of a Cambodian dissident in Thailand, combined with possible deportations of Uyghur refugees has once again shone a spotlight on Bangkok's failure to protect dissidents and political refugees.

Lim Kimya, a French-Cambodian citizen who worked as a French bureaucrat before entering the Cambodian parliament for the CNRP in 2013, was shot twice and died near Bangkok’s popular tourist center of Khao San Road on the evening of Jan. 7.

The Cambodian case comes as Thailand is already under scrutiny over the case of 48 Uyghurs, detained in Bangkok for almost a decade, amid reports Thailand is preparing to send them back to China, and the case of a Vietnamese activist who Hanoi wants to extradite and jail for terrorism.

Thai nationalists are threatening to unleash mass street protests to prevent the government making any concessions over its long-standing territorial disputes with Cambodia.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet has denied that his government and father, former leader Hun Sen, were involved in the killing of an opposition politician in Bangkok this month.