Cambodian Court uphold sentence for Islamic Militants

Charlotte O'Connell
Part A:
I:Citation: http://www.kuwaittimes.net/read_news.php?newsid=Nzc1MDM5MTI3 Kuwait Times, "Cambodian court upholds life sentences for Islamic militants" 3/13/08

II: Summary: Cambodia's supreme court upheld life sentences on three Muslims convicted of plotting terror attacks against Great Britain the the children's fund, UNICEF. A five judge panel ruled that there was evidence that theses three Muslims had helped Hambali (an alleged key member of the Al-Queda-linked JI network) to plan the attacks. All three men have repeatedly denied the charge. The three men's lawyer said there was no witness to prove they had been conspiring. Two of the men's wives have protested the charge and accused the court of trying to gain favor with the Americans. The wives claim the husbands went to Cambodia to be religious teachers and there was no evidence that they had conspired with Hambali. The women plan to petition the sentence and move their husbands back to Thailand so they may have a royal pardon.

III: Reaction
1) This article ties to AP World theme #2 which is "Impact of interaction among and within major societies.
2) This case has been closely monitored for five years and the wives have hoped their husbands would recieve justice and be freed, but they believe the supreme court ruled just to gain favor with the US. The supposed plotting of attacks occured in 2002/2003 and the men were convicted in 2004.
3) Staff writer, outsider
4) The author is biased towards the wives because he has written two paragraphs on the wives of the convicted men, but only had two lines from the supreme court to justify their decision to the readers. Repetition is used several times to drive home the point he is trying to make that the wives believe that the supreme court ruled injustly to their husbands and only ruled this way to gain favor with the US.
5) The point of view that is missing from this article is from an observer in the audience of the court preceedings and another judge who may have more objective observations and who may know more about the outcome of the sentence than the wives may know.
6) I think this is an interesting article because it shows that the US is not alone in its attempt to stop terror attacks and many countries are becoming much more proactive in preventing the attacks. However, we must make sure that we are not basing our decisions about someone's life on how other countries percieve us. We must not take lightly the responsibility of someone's life over a serious accusation. According to the wives of these men, there was not substantial evidence, and in their eyes their husbands were injustly sentenced. When presenting a sentence of this seriousness, we must make sure that every fact is in place, and every stone is unturned before we deliver this sentence. According to the wives, this was not done and justice was not served, and this should serve as a lesson that we should not base our decisions on what other people or countries think.