School Siege in Cambodia Was Revenge Attack - Police

The six-hour siege at a Cambodian nursery school, in which a Canadian toddler died, began as an attempt to murder two pupils in a revenge attack by their father's disgruntled former driver, police said yesterday.

Deputy military police commander Prak Chanthoeun gave details after officers had interrogated four men captured at Siem Reap international school on Thursday.

He said that when the perpetrators could not find their targets at the school, and realised that security forces had surrounded the complex, they took about 30 other children and two teachers hostage.

"They entered the school aiming to take revenge on [two South Korean] children, but it was lucky the children were in another building," he said. "If [they had been] in the room, they would have been killed."

The attackers then demanded $30,000 (£16,500), a minibus and weapons.

Mr Chanthoeun said the former driver, Chea Sokhun, 23, shot a two-year-old Canadian boy in the head because he started crying and the authorities were declining to deliver any weapons.

All the other children and teachers escaped unharmed after security forces stormed the complex as the men tried to flee in the minibus with some of their hostages.

The three other alleged attackers, said to be friends, were armed only with knives.

All four were paraded before the media yesterday. They looked tired and blood-stained.

At least two were allegedly beaten up by angry relatives of the hostages after they were dragged from the minibus.

Police arrested a fifth man yesterday who allegedly had encouraged Chea Sokhun to carry out an armed robbery several months ago. He denied any involvement in the hostage-taking.

The detained men may appear in court today.

Mr Chanthoeun said Chea Sokhun claimed he had plotted the murder after his Korean employer slapped his face, prompting him to quit his job. Local media quoted the unnamed Korean as admitting to hitting his driver.

"Every day, he thought about taking revenge against the South Koreans. So he bought a pistol, then called three friends from his home area," said Mr Chanthoeun.

Police are also not ruling out extortion as a secondary motive. The school, near Cambodia's biggest tourist attraction, the 800-year-old Angkor temple complex, educates children of wealthy Cambodians and foreigners in the country.

Many of the youngsters were treated at hastily established trauma centres in Siem Reap, which were staffed by locals and experts from foreign aid groups who flew in from Phnom Penh.

Reporters described an uneasy calm in Siem Reap yesterday, with policemen still guarding the school and security stepped up at all tourist locations.

"This incident has forced us to improve security, not only at hotels, but also guest houses and restaurants where foreigners are," the provincial police chief, Noun Bophal, was quoted by Reuters news agency as saying. "This is a lesson for us."

The incident has shaken Cambodia's nascent tourism industry, which has been trying to establish a positive image following the harrowing years of Khmer Rouge genocide and civil war.

After three decades of conflict, Cambodia is still awash with guns, although more than 150,000 weapons have been destroyed since 1999 in a government-sponsored eradication campaign.

The dead boy is to be buried in Slovakia, the home country of his parents.