The two men—50-year-old Australian citizen Tran Hiep and 52-year-old Norwegian citizen Nguyen Duc Thuan—arrived in Phnom Penh on September 15 to meet human rights activists. They lost contact on September 18 and missed their scheduled flight back to Bangkok the following day.
Vietnamese state media later claimed the two were arrested for "illegal border crossing." Viet Tan strongly refuted this, stating they had no intention of entering Vietnam and were abducted on Cambodian soil before being pushed across the border. Observers note that Hanoi's intelligence footprint runs deep in Phnom Penh, making high-profile activism in the capital exceptionally precarious.
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