BY PHAN SOUMY | DECEMBER 7, 2016
A Dutch national and two Cambodians were taken into police custody in Kompong Cham province on Tuesday over videos circulated on Facebook showing the physical abuse of a naked toddler, including torture with an electric prod, officials said.
Deputy Kompong Cham police chief Heng Sambath said the men were suspected of involvement in the torture and rape of a child. He said the Cambodians—Ret Sothy, 28, and Oeu Nat, 25—worked for the Dutch man, who owns a plantation in Mondolkiri province.
Stefan Struik, left, and a man he identifies as his boyfriend, Nguyen Dung, appear in a video posted to YouTube in January. Mr. Struik was arrested along with two Cambodians on Tuesday, while Mr. Nguyen is believed to have fled to Vietnam, according to police.
Stefan Struik, left, and a man he identifies as his boyfriend, Nguyen Dung, appear in a video posted to YouTube in January. Mr. Struik was arrested along with two Cambodians on Tuesday, while Mr. Nguyen is believed to have fled to Vietnam, according to police.
Mr. Sambath said the plantation owner was 53 years old and went by the Cambodian name Ly Heng. A photograph of the man in police custody, however, matched photographs online of Stefan Struik, the CEO of Kamkav, a company with cocoa plantations in Mondolkiri and a palm sugar plant in Kompong Cham.
A fourth man, whom Mr. Sambath identified as a Vietnamese national named Nguyen Thahn, remained at large. A Facebook page belonging to a user named Dung Thanh shows numerous photos of himself posing with Mr. Struik. In a YouTube video, the Dutchman introduces the same man as his boyfriend, and names him as Nguyen Dung.
Mr. Sambath said the three men in custody were being questioned over the video footage of abuse, a complaint from the 2-year-old boy’s parents that he had been raped, and in an effort to track down the fourth suspect.
“We haven’t arrested that one yet,” he said of Mr. Nguyen.
Many of the initial videos posted to Facebook were taken down over the course of the day, including a post in which a Vietnamese woman wrote that she felt compelled to share the graphic videos in the hope that the perpetrators were caught.
At least one video remained online as of Tuesday evening, showing a man using a stun gun on various parts of the child’s body as the toddler screams in pain.
James McCabe, head of the Child Protection Unit, a policing charity working on the case, said the child was in the organization’s care. He said a “male” was assisting in the investigation, but declined to give further details or say if other children may have been abused.
Deputy Mondolkiri police chief So Sovann confirmed that the abuse had occurred on a plantation in the province and said the victim was a Cambodian child whose parents worked for the Dutch owner.
Mr. Sovann said Mr. Nguyen is believed to be the man in the video abusing the boy. He was thought to have fled to Vietnam, though he said Cambodian and Vietnamese police were cooperating to track him down.
“The Dutchman is the owner of the farm and the Vietnamese man is a chef that he hired,” Mr. Sovann said, adding that he did not know if they were in a romantic relationship.
“They live on the farm together and [the boy’s] mother is a laborer there,” he said, adding that the parents initially did not know about the abuse because the child was not bruised or visibly injured.
“The mother didn’t know. She didn’t know when it was happening,” he said. “There were no scars or anything.”
However, a police report provided by Mr. Sambath said there was strong physical evidence that the boy had been anally raped.
Mondolkiri provincial police chief Touch Yun said he had learned about the case from videos posted online—showing a man speaking Vietnamese and torturing a naked boy who appeared to be about 2 years old—claiming the abuse occurred in the province.
“I learned about it from Facebook, too,” he said.
Police in Kompong Cham said they were tipped off to the case by police in Mondolkiri.
Suspected Child Torturer Captured In Vietnam
A 25-year-old Vietnamese man was arrested in Ho Chi Minh City on Wednesday evening in relation to graphic videos allegedly showing him repeatedly torturing a young Cambodian boy, according to an investigator involved in the manhunt.
James McCabe, head of the Child Protection Unit, a policing charity involved in the investigation, said Nguyen Thanh Dung was arrested shortly before 9 p.m., a day and a half after the videos were leaked online.
Nguyen Thanh Dung, in a photograph posted to his Facebook page.
Nguyen Thanh Dung, in a photograph posted to his Facebook page.
“I can confirm that Task Force Uniform members made an arrest in Saigon of a Vietnamese national, the name of Nguyen Thanh Dung,” Mr. McCabe said, adding that the force involved Cambodian and Vietnamese police units.
He said two Cambodian men who had been arrested by police on Tuesday were released without charge, and the suspect’s Dutch boyfriend, 53-year-old Stefan Struik, was cooperating with authorities investigating the case.
Police said Mr. Struik, who holds Cambodian citizenship and owns cacao plantations and a palm sugar warehouse in the country, would be sent to court today for allegedly failing to report the abuse.
Mr. Struik was taken into police custody along with the Cambodian men, who were employed on his plantation, in Kompong Cham province. He was to be sent to the provincial court in Mondolkiri, where the abuse occurred, police said.
Under police questioning, Mr. Struik “said he didn’t know anything, he didn’t do anything wrong,” said deputy Mondolkiri police chief So Sovann. “He said [he and Mr. Nguyen] are not lovers, but he said they love each other so much.”
Police said the three had been questioned over the 2-year-old boy’s torture and a separate complaint filed by the toddler’s parents, who cited physical evidence of anal rape.
A YouTube video shows at least two separate instances of torture involving the man and boy, apparently shot with a smartphone in a static position.
The man in the video at one point blindfolds the boy and ties his hands behind his back, repeatedly using a taser on his head, feet, backside and genitals, making the boy scream and cry. At another point, he slaps him around and shoves his fingers and another object down his throat, making him choke.
Mr. Sambath said Mr. Struik and the two Cambodian men told police they had only become aware of the abuse, which took place on Mr. Struik’s cacao plantation in Mondolkiri, after the videos appeared on Facebook on Tuesday.
One of the Cambodian men told police that he believed the videos were leaked online by one of Mr. Nguyen’s cousins, who was jealous that he had found a wealthy partner. However, the Vietnamese woman who appears to have leaked the video said in an accompanying message that she was exposing the torture in the hope that the perpetrators would be caught.
The boy in the video had been sent to the state referral hospital in Sen Monorom City for an examination and was in stable condition, Mr. Sovann added. Mr. McCabe said the boy and his family “will be supported.”
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