Police question suspects in attack

SIEM REAP, Cambodia – Police on Saturday continued to question four men suspected of taking dozens of children hostage at an international school in an attack that left a 2-year-old Canadian boy dead.

Police said they were trying to determine if others were involved in Thursday’s attack.

The alleged ringleader, 23-year-old Chea Sokhom, had been scheduled to face charges in court Saturday over the incident in Siem Reap, near the famed Angkor Wat temple complex.

Authorities reported that they decided to delay his court appearance by at least a day because they needed more time to interrogate him, said Ou Em of the Siem Reap province’s police department.

One question was why the hostage-takers demanded six guns, when only four men were found and arrested at the end of the crisis.

He said the four men will be charged with premeditated murder and kidnapping.

Chea Sokhom has said that he initially planned the raid as an act of revenge against a South Korean who had employed him as a driver and whose daughters attended the school, according to Prak Chanthoeun, the province’s military police deputy commander.

The ordeal finally ended when police cornered the van in which the attackers tried to escape, together with several child hostages and a reported $30,000 that had been given to them by negotiators.