A Thai court issued an arrest warrant for an adviser to the Cambodian strongman Hun Sen on Wednesday, charging him with hiring others to commit “premeditated murder” in the brazen killing of a former Cambodian opposition politician in Bangkok last week.
The warrant was the strongest indication so far that Lim Kimya, who was gunned down on a busy street, was the victim of a political assassination. He was a former legislator with the Cambodia National Rescue Party, an opposition party that was dissolved under pressure from Mr. Hun Sen, who ruled Cambodia as prime minister for nearly four decades. Mr. Hun Sen handed that job to his son Hun Manet in 2023 but remains the leader of his political party and the country’s senate.
The person named in the arrest warrant is Somwang Bamrungkit, 42, a dual Thai-Cambodian national who is known in Cambodia as Ly Rotanakraksmey. Thai prosecutors brought three charges against him, including one involving carrying firearms and firing guns. His current location remains unclear.
Sok Eysan, a spokesman for the Hun dynasty’s Cambodian People’s Party, said even though Mr. Ly Rotanakraksmey was an adviser to Mr. Hun Sen, “what he does illegally, it is that person’s responsibility.” Mr. Hun Sen has appointed dozens of advisers, and the exact nature of his relationship with Mr. Ly Rotanakraksmey was not immediately clear.
Last Tuesday, a gunman shot Mr. Lim Kimya, 73, who was a dual French and Cambodian citizen, after he got off a bus from Cambodia to neighboring Thailand. The gunman fled on a motorcycle and boarded a pickup truck before he crossed into Cambodia. But in the following days, he was arrested and extradited to Thailand, where authorities identified him as Ekaluck Paenoi. He confessed to the killing but told Thai investigators that he could not reveal the mastermind out of fear for his family’s safety.
Cambodian dissidents, including Sam Rainsy, who once led the C.N.R.P., have said the ultimate blame for the killing lies with Mr. Hun Sen.
The killing was seen as a major escalation of a campaign of transnational repression by Cambodia, which in recent months has secured the deportation of dissidents from Thailand and Malaysia. It was condemned by France, which said it would closely monitor the investigation by the Thai authorities.
“It sends a terrifying message that no one is safe,” said Elaine Pearson, the Asia director for Human Rights Watch. “If they can target someone of that stature and do it in such a blasé way, on the streets of downtown Bangkok in daylight hours, in front of CCTV footage, imagine what they could do to someone who doesn’t have a big profile, who’s not an opposition politician and who doesn’t have a second nationality.”
Ms. Pearson said in the wake of the killing, Cambodians in Thailand have contacted her organization, fearing for their security. She said there was an urgent need for foreign governments to quickly resettle Cambodian refugees and exiles.
Before it was crushed, the Cambodia National Rescue Party posed the biggest threat to Mr. Hun Sen’s rule. Mr. Ly Rotanakraksmey, the fugitive, was an official of the C.N.R.P. in Thailand. But in 2022, he joined the C.P.P. and became an adviser to Mr. Hun Sen last January.
Separately, Thai news media reported that Interpol has sought the arrest of Pich Kimsrin, a 24-year-old Cambodian man whom Thai authorities have identified as the so-called spotter in the killing. Mr. Pich Kimsrin appears to be the younger brother of Pich Sros, a pro-government politician who is most well-known for filing the complaint that led to the dissolution of the C.N.R.P. in 2017, according to a family photograph and his birth certificate. Mr. Pich Kimsrin remains at large.
Mr. Pich Sros is a member of the government’s Supreme Consultative Council, giving him a rank equivalent to senior minister and government adviser, and is the founder of his own minor political party, the Cambodian Youth Party, which is aligned with the C.P.P. He declined to comment.
In May 2023, Mr. Pich Kimsrin was appointed as the deputy head of the Phsar Kandal market in Phnom Penh, reporting to Kieng Chak, another adviser to Mr. Hun Sen.
Muktita Suhartono contributed reporting from Bangkok, and Sun Narin contributed from Phnom Penh.