Official's Son Held for $1Million Ransom

  Four armed men kidnapped the son of a senior Interior Ministry official in Phnom Penh's Russei Keo district yesterday evening and are holding him ransom for $1 million, police and military police said. The armed men grabbed Sau Ak No, 40, son of Interior Ministry Undersecretary of State Sau Phan, as he was driving home in Chroy Changva commune, district police chief Saom Bunny said. "Four gunmen forced him into their Lexus and drove into Phnom Penh City," Mr Bunny said. Later that evening, according to deputy municipal military police chief Pong Savrith, the kidnappers contacted the victim's mother and demanded $1 million for his safe return. "We are working in close cooperation with police forces since the kidnapping occurred. But the suspects are still unknown, as well as the fate of the hostage," he said. However, according to Loek Vannak, deputy chief of the Interior Ministry's penal police department, police have not yet determined if Mr Ak No was kidnapped. "Our police forces have not yet concluded that this case is a kidnapping or a personal dispute," Mr Vannak said, before declining to comment further. "Please wait for our police forces to work on it first," he said. National Police spokesman Kirth Chantharith declined to comment on the kidnapping. Yesterday's abduction marks the first time in more than two years that a family member of a senior official has been kidnapped. Siem Reap Provincial Court in March 2009 charged seven people in connection with the abduction of a military police commander's daughter, though two were charged in absentia because they were still at large. The victim, Morm Sreiya, 16, the daughter of military police commander Morm Samon, was returned home safely after being detained for more than 24 hours when the family paid the kidnappers $80,000. Touch Sopheakdey, deputy prosecutor for the provincial court at the time, said yesterday that six of the charged kidnappers were found guilty and sentenced to 17 and 19 years in prison each. Kidnapping was rife in Phnom Penh  in the mid-to late- 1990s, but came to an abrupt halt following the targeting of kidnapping gangs and the military police hunting down and killing the notorious kidnapper known as Rasmach in 2000.