Who Killed Chea Vichea?" to be screened at the WATCH DOCS in Poland

The alleged killer who was released for lack of evidence

The police commissioner who knows a lot, but is now jailed

The corrupt dictator who clings on to power at all cost.

Chea Vichea was Cambodia's leading labor leader, who spent years struggling to improve the working conditions of the country's 300,000 textile workers. Vichea was a true man of the people, defender of workers, who garnered tremendous respect. In 2004, just prior to elections, unknown gunmen shot him on the street. A week later, the police arrested two suspects, convicted in a speedy trial to 20 years in prison based solely on testimony obtained with torture. This film by Bradley Cox (shot while working as an investigative journalist on another case in Bangkok) is an earnest attempt to find the motives and perpetrators behind this political murder. Cambodia, one of the world's most corrupt countries, has been ruled for thirty years by Hun Sen - a Khmer Rouge in the 1970s and later a member of the puppet government installed by the Vietnamese after the abdication of Pol Pot. Cox's film convincingly shows the murder was planned at the highest levels and conducted with the involvement of high-ranking police officers. Chea Vichea remains a powerful threat to the corrupt regime even after his death - a police raid prevented the Cambodian premiere of this film. The film is still banned for its alleged ‘illegal transport,' an ironic allegation in a country where half of all imported goods are smuggled.