Man is guilty in fatal attack abroad

A Long Beach man who prosecutors say orchestrated an attack on the Cambodian government resulting in the deaths of three people and the wounding of several others was convicted Wednesday by a federal jury in Los Angeles of conspiring to kill in a foreign country.

Yasith Chhun, president of the Long Beach-based Cambodian Freedom Fighters, was also convicted of three more conspiracy counts stemming from the Nov. 24, 2000, attacks on buildings housing the Ministry of Defense, the Council of Ministers and a military facility in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh.

Three members of Chhun’s Freedom Fighters were killed during the attacks, dubbed “Operation Volcano,” and several Cambodian police officers and civilians were wounded during the two-hour firefight.

Chhun, 51, plotted the attacks from his Long Beach office.

After the assaults, he returned to the United States, took credit for the attacks in the media and said he would do it again, according to Assistant U.S. Atty. Richard Y. Lee, one of the prosecutors on the case.

The U.S. attorney’s office took jurisdiction based on the belief that Chhun had violated several federal laws governing the commission of crimes in foreign nations.

“Obviously, we can’t have private U.S. citizens waging war against foreign countries,” Lee said.

Prosecutors said Chhun went to Cambodia in 1998 to meet with military personnel opposed to the ruling Cambodia People’s Party, headed by Prime Minister Hun Sen. After the meeting, the Cambodian Freedom Fighters was formed and Chhun was appointed president.

The military faction in Cambodia agreed that it would acquire weapons and that Chhun’s group would be responsible for raising funds “for the violent overthrow of the Cambodian government,” according to a news release from the U.S. attorney’s office. A fundraiser was held at the Queen Mary in Long Beach, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors presented documents at trial in which Chhun allegedly wrote that he would “tear Hun Sen” apart. In a presumed reference to other government officials he planned to “cut their necks” and “send them to hell to soon.”

In fact, Chhun hid on the border of Cambodia and Thailand while about 200 members of his group carried out the assault with AK-47 rifles, grenades and rockets.

Seven witnesses came from Cambodia to testify during the 10-day trial before U.S. District Judge Dean D. Pregerson.

One, a 20-year-old gas station attendant on the night of the attack, testified that he told members of the Freedom Fighters he was unarmed and begged for his life but that they shot him anyway.

As he lay injured, they tossed a grenade at him as they were walking away. The man testified that it took him two years to learn how to walk again, Lee said.

“The plan was to kill anyone who got in their way,” Lee said.

Chhun is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 8. He faces a potential life sentence.

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scott.glover@latimes.com