Hanoi - A court in southern Vietnam sentenced a Buddhist monk to a year in prison for "undermining the national unity policy" while he was living in neighbouring Cambodia, state-media reported Friday. Vietnamese-born Tim Sakhorn, who moved to Cambodia in 1979, had been abbot of a Buddhist pagoda in Cambodia's Takeo province.
Sakhorn had admitted to being active in an overseas movement pushing for Vietnam's ethnic Khmer minority in the Mekong Delta to shake off Vietnamese rule, according to Vietnam Law newspaper.
"Tim Sakhorn received documents and money from exiled hostile forces to disseminate 500 documents and 300 videos containing information against our country and igniting Khmer people in An Giang [province] to file complaints and cause disturbance," the paper reported.
Sakhorn, an ethnic Khmer himself, was defrocked on June 30 by Cambodia's government-loyal supreme patriarch of Buddhists, who accused Sakhorn of harming Cambodia's relations with Vietnam.
The abbot's family said he was guilty only of giving food and shelter to ethnic Khmer monks and lay people crossing the border from southern Vietnam.
Sakhorn disappeared soon after he was defrocked and human rights groups accused Vietnamese authorities of kidnapping him, though Cambodian officials said Sakhorn willingly decided to return to Vietnam, according to the Cambodian Daily newspaper.
Vietnam Law newspaper reported Friday that Sakhorn had been "expelled" by Cambodian authorities and was arrested as he was trying to re-enter Vietnam.
Under Article 87 of Vietnamese law, "undermining national unity" is punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
More than 1 million Khmer (the dominant ethnicity in Cambodia) live in the southern Mekong Delta on land that was put under Vietnamese administration during French colonial rule.
To Cambodians, much of the Mekong Delta is known as "Kampuchea Krom" and various overseas anti-Vietnamese movements seek its return to Cambodian sovereignty.
