32 US Embassy Staff Fired In Cambodia, Allegedly For Sharing Pornography

Several sources that work closely with the United States Embassy in Cambodia said Friday the organization fired 32 employees after they were supposedly caught sharing pornographic material in an unofficial chat group.

Sources familiar with the matter said several pornographic images and videos, some even featuring minors, were shared in a Facebook Messenger chat group, Reuters reported.

The sources added some of these images were discovered by the wife of an embassy worker who later reported the incident to someone of authority within the office. The matter was later forwarded to the FBI.

“They had their identification cards taken and some of their phones checked,” a former U.S. embassy staff member, who chose to stay anonymous, said.

He added the fired embassy workers also included Cambodians and Cambodian-Americans, out of which many were guards and some were clerical staff. No diplomat was fired in relation to the matter, the source said.

Reports said two of the sources, both of whom who also work at the embassy, confirmed the dismissals.

The report of the sacking comes at a time amid tensions between the two countries after the U.S. criticized the crackdown on opposition in 2017 by Hun Sen, the Cambodian prime minister who ruled the country for more than 30 years, and his subsequent anger over what he believed was the former’s effort to weaken his rule.

However, the U.S. denied interfering in the Cambodian politics.

The Cambodian government has still not addressed the dismissal of 32 U.S. workers. When contacted, an embassy spokesperson said he was not in a position to say anything on the matter and it should be taken up with the State Department, which also declined to comment.

“These records are confidential. I am not sure that’s really something we would have a comment on,” he said.

Reports stated Cambodia, which is still emerging from decades of internal conflicts and poverty, has been infamous for child prostitution. Several foreigners, over the years, have been convicted and jailed for child abuse.

According to a 2016 report by the U.S. State Department, child rape was a persistent problem in the South Asian country.

In August 2017, a U.S. citizen who was supposed to be extradited from Cambodia was retained by the government for allegedly raping a 5-year-old girl, the Cambodian Daily reported.

Robert James Boehnlein, 65, had outstanding warrants in the U.S. and was arrested by the immigration police. However, later at the request of Uk Heisela, Cambodia’s chief of investigations at the Interior Ministry’s Immigration Department, U.S. decided to drop charges against Boehnlein, and he was not extradited but tried in court in the southeast Asian country for raping the girl several times between March and April 2016 in a house he was living in at the time.