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A court in Thailand has handed down a sentence to a man to life imprisonment for killing a prominent Cambodian opposition politician in Bangkok.

In January, hours after Lim Kimya arrived in the capital city of Thailand with his spouse, he was shot dead in a public area by citizen of Thailand the assailant. The perpetrator then escaped to Cambodia, where he was arrested and deported.

The defendant had initially been handed the capital punishment, but that was reduced to a life sentence due to his admission to the killing, the court said on the recent Friday.

The motive for Lim Kimya's killing remains unclear - though it has been widely suspected to be a politically driven assassination.

Political Context in Cambodia

Dissident figures and campaigners are often imprisoned and harassed in the nation, where government officials have minimal acceptance for opposition views.

Lim Kimya, who had dual Cambodian and French nationality, was a former parliamentarian from the primary opposition group in Cambodia, the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP).

The CNRP had come close to defeating the long-ruling party of ex-leader Hun Sen in 2013.

After Hun Sen accused the opposition party of betrayal, the party was outlawed in 2017 and its members were barred from taking part in political engagements.

The current PM of Cambodia Hun Manet - who succeeded his parent Hun Sen in 2023 - has denied that the government was implicated in the assassination.

Particulars of the Case

Security camera footage from January showed the convicted man parking his motorbike, removing his helmet and walking calmly across the road before gunfire was heard.

The offender was also found guilty of carrying and using a firearm, and ordered to pay around 55,000 US dollars (40,800 British pounds) to the victim's relatives.

The tribunal dismissed a charge against a second suspect - a Thai national charged with transporting Ekkalak to the border with Cambodia after the shooting - on the grounds that he was merely a chauffeur who did not have knowledge of the killing.

Reactions and Wider Consequences

The legal representative for the widow of the victim told news agency AFP that she was "likely content" with Friday's verdict, though she was "continuing to ask who ordered the offense".

"She desires the officials to fully investigate the matter."

In recent years dozens of activists escaping repression in Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand have been sent back after seeking sanctuary, or in certain instances have been killed or gone missing.

Human rights groups believe there is an unwritten agreement among the four neighbouring countries to allow each other's law enforcement to chase dissidents over the frontier.