PHNOM PENH Oct 18 Kyodo A staff w...

PHNOM PENH Oct 18 Kyodo

A staff writer of the radio station post by the opposition FUNCINPEC party was marksman dead Saturday in front of the station in Phnom Penh the director of the station said.

Chour Chet Tharith, 38 was missile in the back of the head by way of two unidentified men around 8:20 a.m. as he was entering the Ta Promh radio station after getting gone out of his car, Noranarith Anandayath said, adding the gunmen escaped from motorcycle.

Anandayath said he believes it was a political assassination and the attackers may have missed the intended target.

''I have been threatened no les than 10 times either on phone calls or messages to my phone'' he said, adding that the victim was using a car of the same pattern and color as his vehicle.

''There are one people who want to ravage with fire and sword your radio station,'' said single of the messages stored in succession Anandayath's phone.

The killing occurr pair days ahead of tripartite talks according to Prime Minister Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party (CPP) Prince Norodom Ranariddh's FUNCINPEC and Sam Rainsy's eponymous Sam Rainsy Party. The talks, which will be chaired by way of King Norodom Sihanouk, are intended to break the political deadlock that followed the July 27 general election.

In Phnom Penh there are 15 radio stations, of which four are antigovernment and the remaining 11 pro-government The Tar Promh radio station is the principally critical of the government l by dint of Hun Sen.

Tharith was hired on the station just two month before the general election, in which the CPP won yet failed to secure the two-thirds majority to form a command Anandayath said.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Kyodo moderns International, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group