Arrest warrant for Ranariddh

Ranariddh was toppled by the Second Prime Minster Hun Sen on July 6 after two days of fighting in the capital. The Prince had left the country two days earlier.

The Cambodian National Assembly voted last Wednesday to strip Ranariddh of his Parliamentary immunity.

A weapons shipment, seized at Cambodia’s main port in late May, sparked a serious row between Hun Sen and Ranariddh and led to a tense stand off between their security forces.

Hun Sen called for legal action over the arms which he said Ranariddh was importing illegally.

But the prince denied he was trying to smuggle the shipment of arms into the country and pointed out that his name was on the shipping documents. He said he was entitled to import the equipment for the use of his personal security force.

Meanwhile, Hun Sen met King Norodom Sihanouk in Beijing today to seek the monarch’s political blessing for his seizure of power last month. A convoy of six cars carrying Cambodian flags swept Hun Sen and other senior officials past waiting reporters into Sihanouk’s tightly-guarded Beijing residence.

The prime minister arrived in Beijing yesterday accompanied by the newly-appointed First Prime Minister Ung Huot, the acting Head of State Chea Sim and a delegation of government officials.

The meeting followed an offer of abdication by Sihanouk, who has so far declined to endorse Hun Sen’s rule, instead criticising Ung Huot as a “puppet” of Hun Sen.