Why was a Cambodian opposition politician killed in Bangkok?

It had all the hallmarks of cold-blooded, professional murder.

Next to a famous temple in Bangkok's historic royal district, a man is seen on security camera video parking his motorcycle, removing his helmet so his face is clearly visible, and calmly crossing the road.

A few minutes later, gunshots are heard. Another man falls to the ground.

The killer quickly returns to his bike, appearing to throw something away as he does, and drives off.

The victim was Lim Kimia, a 73-year-old former parliamentarian from Cambodia's main opposition party, CNRP, which was banned in 2017. He was hit in the chest by two bullets, according to Thai police. He had just arrived in Bangkok with his wife by bus from Cambodia.

A police officer tried to resuscitate him, but he was pronounced dead at the scene.

“He was brave, with an independent mind,” Monovitiya Kem, daughter of CNRP leader Kem Soha, told the BBC.

“No one but the Cambodian state would want to kill him.

Lim Kimia held dual Cambodian and French citizenship but chose to remain in Cambodia even after his party was banned. The CNRP – Cambodia National Salvation Party – was a merger of two earlier opposition parties and in 2013. came close to defeating the party of Hun Sen, the self-styled “strongman” who ruled Cambodia for nearly 40 years before handing it over to his son Hun Mane in 2023.

After his appeal in the 2013 elections. Hun Sen accused the CNRP of treason, shutting it down and subjecting its members to legal and other forms of harassment. In 2023 Kem Soha, who has already spent six years under house arrest, was sentenced to 27 years in prison.

High-level political assassinations, while unknown, are relatively rare in Cambodia; in 2016 a popular critic of Hun Sen, Kem Lay, was shot dead in Phnom Penh, and in 2012 environmental activist Chut Wutty was also killed.

From security camera footage, Thai police have now identified Lim Kimia's killer as a former Thai navy officer who now works as a motorcycle taxi driver. Finding it shouldn't be difficult.

Whether the murder was fully investigated is another matter.

In recent years, dozens of activists fleeing repression in Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand have been turned back after seeking asylum, or in some cases killed or disappeared. Human rights groups believe there is an unwritten agreement between the four neighboring countries that allows the others' security forces to pursue dissidents across the border.

Last November, Thailand sent six Cambodian dissidents, along with a young child, back to Cambodia, where they were immediately jailed. All were recognized by the UN as refugees. Earlier in the year, Thailand also sent a Vietnamese activist from Montanar back to Vietnam.

In the past, Thai anti-monarchy activists have been abducted and disappeared in Laos, widely believed to be by Thai security forces operating outside their own borders. In 2020 a young Thai activist who fled to Cambodia, Wanchalerm Satsaksit, was kidnapped and disappearedagain allegedly by Thai operatives.

Cambodian authorities did little to investigate and last year announced they had closed the case. The same may happen in the case of Lim Kimya.

“Thailand runs a de facto 'swap arrangement,'” says Phil Robertson, director of Asian Human Rights and Labor Defenders in Thailand.

“Dissidents and refugees are traded for political and economic favors with neighboring countries. The growing practice of transnational repression in the Mekong sub-region must be stopped immediately.”

When Hun Mane, educated in the US and the UK, succeeded his father as Cambodia's prime minister, there was some speculation that he might rule with a lighter hand. But opposition figures were still persecuted and jailed, and what little space was left for political dissent was almost completely closed off.

Since his semi-retirement, the figure of Hun Sen still looms over his son's administration; now he's calling for a new law to brand as terrorists anyone who tries to replace him.

Thailand, which lobbied hard for and won a seat on the UN Human Rights Council this year, will now be under pressure to show it can bring to justice those behind such brazen killing on the streets of its capital.