Eleven people, including police and military officials, have been given stiff prison sentences over an enormous logging scandal in which tons of timber were taken from a key Cambodian park, court officials said Thursday.
The defendants, who also included forest rangers, were all sentenced to between five and seven years in prison for allowing a Vietnamese company to log large swathes of northeastern Cambodia's Virachey National Park.
"This is a great loss for Cambodia," said prosecutor Ngeth Sarath, adding that an estimated 15 million dollars worth of logs were taken from the park in 2004.
Seven of the defendants remain at large and were sentenced in absentia, Ngeth Sarath told AFP.
Illegal logging is a major environmental issue in Cambodia, with vast tracts of forest that had been protected by years of war coming under increasing threat since the fighting ended in 1998.
A World Bank forestry program has come under scrutiny after failing to stop logging.
