THIS is the horrifying moment a French backpacker was dragged into a car before she was gang-raped while on holiday in Cambodia. The 43-year-old woman was walking back to her hotel from a restaurant just after 3am last Friday in Kampot, in the south. Three local men pulled up alongside her and offered her a […]
THIS is the horrifying moment a French backpacker was dragged into a car before she was gang-raped while on holiday in Cambodia.
The 43-year-old woman was walking back to her hotel from a restaurant just after 3am last Friday in Kampot, in the south.
Three local men pulled up alongside her and offered her a lift to where she was staying before allegedly pulling her into the car.
The victim, from Paris, told police the men took her to a remote location and refused to let her leave.
She said all three men repeatedly raped her before driving her back at 5.40am.
The woman went to police that day and made a complain.
Officers arrested the suspects at different locations on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Police Major General Mao Chanmathurith said taxi driver Seng Srun, 37, Pum Livy, 19, and Nget Nophea, 23, had all confessed to raping the tourist.
The provincial police chief said: “The report was investigated in detail and the arrests were made a few days after.
“All three suspects were caught and they confessed to committing the crime.”
CCTV shows the woman wearing a black dress and backpack while walking home after leaving the Golden Time restaurant.
A white Toyota Camry pulls up and a video shows a man talking to the victim with the door open.
He then appears to try and pull her arm into the car.
Police said there is no footage of the alleged attack but the suspects have admitted to raping the woman.
The woman told police she had been drinking and “doesn’t remember the incident clearly” but gave enough details for officers to trace the men.
Brigadier General Sao Sam Oeun, from Kampot police, said the suspects offered the woman a lift home.
She was then allegedly forced into the car.
He said: “They did not take her back to her accommodation. But they drove her to a location where they raped her then took her to her home.”
Opsovan Chan Thorn, a police assistant with rights group Licadho, said the attack could stop foreign women tourists from visiting the area, despite cases of rape in the area are “rare”.
In May 2015, Cambodian resort workers Sarith Sethy, 22, and Kuoy Pov, 17, confessed to raping a 22-year-old Australian woman they found sleeping on O’Chheuteal beach in Sihanoukville province.
In July of that year, there were two other reported rapes involving foreign tourists within a week of each another in the same province.
The first, a violent robbery and rape, happened on Victory Beach on July 20.
The second, three days later, involved an Australian woman being raped by a tuk-tuk driver when returning from Otres beach in the early hours of the morning.
Cambodia saw 6.2million international tourist arrivals last year, up almost 11 per cent from 2017.
More than 170,000 French tourists visited the country in 2018 – the highest from any European country.
