Khmer Rouge soldiers jailed for murder of British charity worker

by Dave Keating | October 13, 2008 at 11:07 pm

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In Cambodia, four former Khmer Rouge soldiers have been convicted of murdering a British aid worker, and sentenced to 20 years. The British man was working to clear mines in the former war-torn country.

Four former members of the Khmer Rouge were given long jail terms by a Cambodian court today for the kidnapping and murder of a British mine-clearing expert and his interpreter 12 years ago.

Three of the accused were sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment and a fourth got 10 years for the murders of the former British army engineer Christopher Howes and Huon Hourth.

Howes, 37, from Backwell, near Bristol, was murdered in the Cambodian forest days after he was seized with a 30-strong team from the British-based Mines Advisory Group (Mag) in March 1996, most of whom escaped or were released within a day.

But Howes' fate remained a mystery for two years until Scotland Yard detectives investigating the disappearances discovered fragments of bone in a fire that the guilty men used in an effort to destroy the evidence.