Victims wake to pedophile nightmare in Sihanoukville

May Titthara and Vincent MacIsaac
The Phnom Penh Post

For Mao Rin, not her real name, the past week has sent her back to the time when she was eight or nine years old. She is not sure exactly how old she was when it happened because she has blocked most of it out of her mind.

“I always dreamed about that story,” she said yesterday, referring to the series of sexual assaults she experienced from serial pedophile Alexander Trofimov. Now, however, the nightmares she had learned to shake herself out of have returned as thoughts that shock her while she is awake. “I cannot find the words to describe what I felt when I heard he was released,” she told the Post. “Now, I remember everything he did to me when I was a child.”

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Anger over pedophile pardons

May Titthara and Vincent MacIsaac
The Phnom Penh Post

A third foreign pedophile – a Dutch national who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for sex crimes against six boys in 2005 – was released from prison last week after receiving a royal pardon.

Prey Sar prison director Sun Lean said yesterday Rene Paul Martin Aubel had left the prison in Phnom Penh on December 23 after being pardoned.

The early release of three foreign pedophiles in one week was not a coincidence, Seila Samleang, country director of the NGO Action Pour Les Enfants, said.


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Snake Island pedophile set free in Sihanoukville

May Titthara and Vincent MacIsaac
The Phnom Phen Post  

Serial pedophile and mega-resort investor Alexander Trofimov walked free from Preah Sihanouk Provincial Prison on Tuesday after serving slightly more than half of his previously reduced sentence for sex crimes against 17 underage girls, the prison’s director said yesterday.

Pich Veasna said that Trofimov was released on Tuesday following a Royal pardon. “We requested to King Norodom Sihamoni to pardon him because he had corrected himself during the time he served in prison,” Pich Veasna told the Post.

The former chairman of Russian-led Koh Pous (Snake Island) Investment Company was first accused in 2007 of purchasing sex from six girls between six and 16 years of age. After the first set of charges, 13 more girls – including one who was deaf – accused the now 45-year-old Russian businessman of sexually abusing them. He was convicted of sex crimes against 17 of them.

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