The response team includes officials from the police and South Korea’s spy agency, according to the presidential office.
South Korean police are set to “discuss with Cambodian authorities the repatriation of detained South Koreans” and conduct a joint investigation into the recent death of a South Korean college student, the presidential office has said.
The recent death of a Korean college student in Cambodia – reportedly kidnapped and tortured by a local crime ring – has shocked South Korea.
Police investigations and an autopsy showed the student, whose body was found in a pickup truck early on Aug 8, “died as a result of severe torture, with multiple bruises and injuries across his body”, according to a Cambodian court statement.
Three Chinese nationals were charged with murder and online fraud on Aug 11 and remain in pre-trial detention, the court said.
Many Korean victims of such crimes in Cambodia are said to have been lured by fraudulent job offers promising high pay, according to the South Korean government.
According to Amnesty International, abuses in Cambodia’s scam centres are happening on a “mass scale”.
There are at least 53 scam compounds in the country where organised criminal groups carry out human trafficking, forced labour, torture, deprivation of liberty and slavery, according to the organisation.
Source: CNA
