Cambodian court sentences Vietnamese man to 18 years in shocking child rape case

By VnExpress   July 13, 2017 | 07:15 pm PT
Cambodian court sentences Vietnamese man to 18 years in shocking child rape case
A photo provided by Ho Chi Minh City Police shows Nguyen Thanh Dung in custody.
Videos of a naked two-year-old boy being tortured shocked the world in December.

A Vietnamese man was sentenced to 18 years in prison in Cambodia on Thursday for torturing and raping a two-year-old boy, a case that shocked the entire region late last year.

Nguyen Thanh Dung, 34, remains in custody in Vietnam and was sentenced in absentia, the Phnom Penh Post reported.

Vietnamese police arrested him last December after disturbing videos of the abuse went viral on Facebook.

The horrific videos made international headlines when they surfaced online, showing a naked boy being abused with an electric prod and a stun gun.

There was evidence that he had been annally raped.

Dung was also ordered to pay 80 million riel ($20,000) to the victim's family.

His Dutch boyfriend, Stefan Struik, received a two-year sentence and a fine of around $1,000 for concealing evidence and failing to report the crime.

Struik, 53, was CEO of a company that owns cocoa plantations and a palm sugar plant in Cambodia.

An investigation, launched after the parents lodged a child rape complaint, found the assault occurred at one of his plantations where the child's parents worked and lived together.

Dung worked as a manager for the company.

 
 
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