A Cambodian police officer questions June 17 four men who stormed into the Siem Reap International School on June 16 in northwestern Cambodia.

The ringleader allegedly persuaded three friends to don masks and storm the international school in the town of Siem Reap on the morning of June 16, herding a teacher and about 30 children into a classroom and fatally shooting a 2-year-old Canadian boy.

Police say the men, all in their early 20s, wanted to extort money from the foreigners and well-off Cambodians whose children attend the school. The leader initially planned the raid as revenge against a South Korean man who employed him to drive his two children to the school and who had slapped him, causing him to quit. The government was investigating whether the attackers may have had political motives and accomplices.

A tense six-hour standoff ensued as police negotiated with the gunmen and parents waited anxiously outside. The authorities gave the attackers $30,000 and a van, but when the men got into the vehicle with four children, security forces smashed the van's windows and yanked them from the vehicle.

The Japan Times Weekly: June 25, 2005
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