SALON

Wednesday, Jun 20, 2012 2:45 AM UTC

Cambodia arrests Frenchman linked to China scandal

By

Topics: From the Wires,

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Cambodian police have arrested a Frenchman reportedly linked to a politician at the center of China’s biggest political scandal in years.

Cambodian authorities informed the French Embassy in Phnom Penh of the arrest of Patrick Devillers, embassy spokeswoman Laurence Bernardi said Tuesday. She said no reason was given and the embassy was seeking an explanation from the Cambodian government.

It was unclear whether Devillers’ arrest was related to China’s ongoing investigation into Bo Xilai, the former Communist Party chief of the Chinese city of Chongqing who was dismissed in April.

Bo’s ouster came after his former police chief fled to a U.S. consulate and divulged suspicions that Bo’s wife, Gu Kailai, was involved in the suspicious death last November of a British businessman, Neil Heywood.

Bo has since been subject to a wide-ranging investigation into unspecified malfeasance, while his wife has been named a suspect in Heywood’s death.

Several businesspeople and former government officials with links to Bo have reportedly been detained for alleged corruption and abuse of power.

News reports have said that Devillers was closely linked to Bo, Gu and Heywood. It is not clear if he is accused of any crimes in China or elsewhere.

Phnom Penh police chief Gen. Touch Naruth confirmed Devillers’ arrest but declined to provide further information.

Calls to the Chinese Foreign Ministry rang unanswered Tuesday night.

Devillers, an architect, had helped Bo rebuild the northeastern Chinese city of Dalian when Bo was the city’s mayor in the 1990s, The New York Times reported last month.

The Frenchman and Gu were partners in setting up a company in Britain in 2000 to select European architects for Chinese projects and both gave the same address of an apartment in the English city of Bournemouth, the newspaper said.

It cited an unidentified friend of Devillers as saying the architect left China in 2005 and has been living in Cambodia more or less continuously for about six years.

Eric Bosc, deputy to the French Foreign Ministry’s spokesman, said Devillers was arrested June 13 and the French consul has daily visits with him but that the reason for his arrest remains unclear.

“We have told local authorities that we are attentive that no follow-up of any kind be engaged without a clearly established judicial basis,” said Bosc, who deals with French in difficulty around the world. “We have asked Cambodian authorities for clarification about the motives of his arrest.” Speaking by phone, he made no link to China, saying that only “he is detained by a sovereign country.”

China has considerable influence in Cambodia, having provided millions of dollars in aid over the past decade.

In 2009, Cambodia deported 20 members of the Uighur ethnic minority group who said they were fleeing ethnic violence in China’s far west and wanted asylum.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments are not enabled for this story.

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Journalists file suit against Manning's trial secrecy: Plaintiffs including Glenn Greenwald and Julian Assange demand press, public access to trial and documents
138 points139 points | comment
vote
Report: Nearly a quarter of Americans struggle to afford food
122 points123 points | 12 comments
vote
Kaitlyn Hunt refuses plea offer, will go to court over high school relationship - The 18-year-old rejected a deal that would have labeled her a sex offender and placed her under house arrest
111 points112 points | 84 comments
vote
Kaitlyn Hunt refuses plea offer, will go to court over high school relationship - The 18-year-old rejected a deal that would have labeled her a sex offender and placed her under house arrest
101 points102 points | 28 comments
vote
Ted Cruz against the world - How the Junior Senator is igniting the GOP civil war
76 points77 points | 19 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: Chekhov's story mirrors Russia's own

Recommendations