Prime Minister Hun Sen Tuesday rejects opposition party's officials' plea to grant amnesty to the party's leader Sam Rainsy.
Mr. Sam Rainsy was sentenced by Phnom Penh Municipal Court to 18 months in prison on defamation charges.
In his speech at a bridge inauguration in Kandal province, Mr. Hun Sen says he does not want to discuss Mr. Sam Rainsy's case.
Sam Rainsy party legislator Keo Remy says that Mr. Hun Sen should not close the door on the opposition party, and should not refuse to talk about the opposition party leader's case.
Mr. Sam Rainsy's lawyer Som Chandina wrote a letter to King Sihamoni appealing to him to interfere in dropping charges against Mr. Sam Rainsy.
Mr. Hun Sen says that this individual wrote a letter to the King to pardon that individual, and that he does not need to talk with the person who wrote the letter, and that this person should ask the king and talk to the court instead.
The Phnom Penh Municipal court sentenced Mr. Sam Rainsy in absentia to 18 months imprisonment, and arrested civil societies' leaders with defamation, by using criminal code dated from the United Nations Transitional Authority for Cambodia (UNTAC) in 1992, and which the international community considered as obsolete.