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| Australian filmmaker James Ricketson in police custody in Phnom Penh. Photo: Supplied |
Australian linked to supposed plot
to overthrow Cambodian autocrat
Sydney Morning Herald | 8 September 2017
Phnom Penh: Three months ago, police clapped handcuffs on Australian filmmaker James Ricketson and carried him by the arms and legs away from the Cambodian capital's riverfront.
His adopted daughter screamed hysterically for him to be left alone.
Now government-aligned media outlets in Phnom Penh are accusing Ricketson of being an "important spy," linking him to an alleged conspiracy to topple the government of strongman Hun Sen in an Arab-Spring-style uprising.
In Prey Sar, a notoriously harsh prison on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, 68 year-old Ricketson's health is rapidly deteriorating as he awaits trial on espionage charges that could see him sentenced to between five and 10 years jail.
"James' legs are swollen, he has a problem in his chest and is coughing and has lost his appetite," says Both Chhork, a tuk tuk driver who brings him food in jail.
"I asked 'Papa papa are you OK?' He just looked sad," Chhork says. "I looked down at his legs and I knew he was not OK and said nothing more."
Fresh News, which frequently paints government critics as national traitors, has linked Ricketson in a series of explosive but unsubstantiated articles to people it alleges are co-conspirators in the plot: opposition leaders, staff of non-government-organisations, a US embassy official and journalists.
Hun Sen, one of the world's most notorious autocrats, has used the supposed plot to justify a sweeping crackdown to silence critics.
On September 3, government authorities stormed the home of Kem Sokha, president of the opposition Cambodian National Rescue Party, charging him with treason, and 13 other party officials have been jailed. Government officials warn more arrests are to come.
Appearing to be referring to Ricketson's case in June, Hun Sen called for the arrest of "any spies in Cambodia," no matter whether they were foreigners or Cambodians.
Initial reports in Cambodia's media said Ricketson, an award-winning filmmaker from Sydney, faced charges relating only to him flying a drone over an opposition rally.
But Yem Chanthy, a 32-year-old mother of six who Ricketson adopted after finding her begging in 2008, says he was not arrested while flying the drone but hours later when at least 15 police confronted him on the riverfront.
The account indicates he was the target of a planned police operation.
Chanthy says a man in civilian clothes who claimed to be a passport "middleman" first struck up a conversation with Ricketson on the riverfront.
As the man began taking photographs of Ricketson, uniformed police rushed towards him. Chanthy says Ricketson didn't struggle but was still picked up and carried to a police vehicle, demanding to know why he was being arrested.
Chanthy says she screamed at the police to let him go free, but one told her "go away or else you will die".
Chanthy refused to leave Ricketson, staying overnight at a police station where he was interrogated for hours after his passport, computer, phone, drone and other belongings were seized from the guesthouse where he was staying.
"My papa was pleading to be allowed to go home. He had a flight booked to Australia the next day," Chanthy says.
Ricketson was held incommunicado for six days before authorities announced he was being charged with "receiving or collecting information, processes, objects, documents, computerised data or files with a view to supplying them to a foreign state or its agents, which are liable to prejudice the national defence."
The nature of the charge suggests authorities will allege Ricketson was spying for Australia or its agents. But no details have been made public while he has been refused bail.
A controversial figure who gained both enemies and admirers while campaigning for various causes, Ricketson has not yet had the opportunity to defend himself.
Family members say they have been advised not to talk with the media about the case that could strain the Turnbull government's relations with Cambodia at a time immigration officials have begun a fresh push to convince refugees on Nauru to relocate to Phnom Penh.
For years Ricketson was a familiar face at political rallies and protests in Phnom Penh, jostling with local cameramen for a good camera position.
In the early afternoon of June 3, the day before local elections, he was photographed flying the drone over a rally that attracted more than 100,000 opposition supporters.
Chanthy says he then went to visit a rubbish dump on the outskirts of Phnom Penh where he helps scavengers. He returned to the riverfront shortly before dusk to be with her family.
"My papa should be released. He has done nothing wrong," Chanthy says. "They won't let me go and visit him."
Ricketson, who studied at the Australian Film and Television School, made a documentary film on the life of Chanthy whom he took off the streets after he found her begging near a market. He campaigned to have two of her children, Rosa and Chita, released from a support care residential centre in Phnom Penh run by the Australian evangelical church Citipointe.
He inundated the church with demands to allow the children to return to Chanthy, who says they are now happily living with her and going to a public school.
While Ricketson is in jail, Chanthy has returned to street begging to supplement the income that her husband Both Chhork makes riding his tuk tuk.
In Phnom Penh, Ricketson became known as prolific letter writer and an uncompromising figure, once wrestling with an official on the ground after an argument. He campaigned for the release of a British man jailed in Prey Sar on child sex offences whom he insists is innocent.
Last year he was found guilty of defaming an organisation that investigates foreign paedophiles, and received a suspended sentence.
In blogs and letters he waged a campaign against fellow Australian Scott Neeson, founder of the Cambodian Children's Fund. The fund last year published "fact-sheets" to counter the allegations.
Ricketson, who has been in a long-running dispute with Screen Australia, won an Australian Film Institute award for Best Screenplay Adaptation for the 1995 film Blackfellas, which he also directed.
In Cambodia, he has documented the struggle of former opposition leader Sam Rainsy, who has been forced to live in exile to avoid jail sentences on what are seen as politically motivated charges.
Rainsy told the Phnom Penh Post in June he was unaware Ricketson was making a documentary about him or his party.
"I haven't seen the guy for years. But he remains a friend," he said.
The Phnom Penh Post claimed Ricketson has long been a critic of Hun Sen, who has ruled Cambodia with an iron-first for three decades.
In a 2013 Facebook post the newspaper said Ricketson described Hun Sen as the "Darth Vader" of Cambodian politics while Rainsy was like "Luke Skywalker." The post reportedly added that Hun Sen was a "dictator in the Mugabe mould".
Sebastian Strangio, author of Hun Sen's Cambodia, says stories linking Ricketson to a conspiracy to overthrow the government are a "troubling escalation in the volume of these conspiracy theories".
"We've seen these theories dialled up to a shrieking pitch," he says. "I can't remember the last time a foreign journalist was accused of being a foreign spy before Ricketson's arrest."
Ricketson's friends fear for his health in Prey Sar, where prisoners sleep packed together.
"James is 68 years old and I worry he is just not up to this treatment," says his fellow film school graduate John Papadopoulos, who was allowed only 10 minutes to speak with him in jail recently.
Papadopoulos says Ricketson told him, "I don't take any shit from these guys," referring to guards closely monitoring their conversation, before he was ushered away.
Rubbish dump scavengers who Ricketson has supported for years are shocked by his jailing.
"I miss him so much. I want to visit him in jail but I cannot. Only his family members can," says a 68-year-old woman scavenger.
"When James came here he called my name and hugged me. He gave me rice and some money each time," she says.
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