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Since visiting Cambodia a few years ago I've always said it is my first choice if I have to leave my home. Looks like I wasn't alone.
It's a lovely place with friendly people. I will never be able to distinguish the Khmer consonant sounds enough to understand or speak it, but English is common.
Unfortunately for fugitives, they do have extradition treaties.
> While there is no extradition treaty between Cambodia and Sweden the lawyer believes his client could be transferred to his home country eventually.
I've been to Cambodia too and totally agree with you – people are friendly, helpful and the country is a wonderful place to live.
Do they have a _real_ health system? I doubt that the life in Cambodia is better than in Sweden. Maybe it's ok if you to go the country as US-American, but the Swedish living standard is much higher ;)
i can tell you i walked into a clinic and saw a doctor within minutes, ran bloodwork, got tested for dengue and yellow fever. in and out in 20 minutes, had my results the next day. that cost $45. everything was clean and sterile, needles came from packages, went into biohazard boxes.
also, i walked into a pharmacy and bought a round amoxicillin without the need for a prescription. i had a note from the doctor to make sure i had the right dosage. that cost me $4.
also, you can wear a t-shirt and shorts with sandals all year round. you can eat all you can fit inside your body for less than $10 a day ($3 if you eat local food). you can visit some of the world's largest and most amazing ruins as well as some of the world's last undeveloped paradise islands.
how many gorgeous beaches are in Sweden? ;)
What about internet speed?
Quality of life is all in the head. There isn't an easy way to measure this. I'm guessing that he was very happy in Cambodia as he chose that location over many others he probably could have lived in.
The health care system in third world countries in Asia are fine for the basics, but you wouldn't want to go through something like emergency heart surgery there. ;)
Though, this depends on where you are actually located. There are a lot of areas in S.E. Asia which have become locations for medical tourism and I imagine you could get decent care in those places. You better have the money though. In the Philippines they won't let you leave the hospital until you have paid your fees. You often have to pay partially up-front as well. When I went to a hospital to treat a broken wrist, I had to go back through town in a bumpy (ouch!, ouch!, ouch!) pedicab to pull money from an ATM. Oh, and you can only pull out the equivalent of $230 / pay / card at the ATM's there. So, if your fees are higher than that, then you might need to stay multiple days just so that you can pull enough out of the ATM.
I haven't been there and just want to know if it's a dangerous place for visitors?
not really. definitely not any more so than any other southeast asian country, and most definitely safer than some (southern islands in the Philippines for starters).
Any risk of a repeat of the Khmer Rouge?
You mean beyond the ambient risk of violent revolutions in non-industrialized companies? Probably not, no.
He would have had better luck hiding in the US, IMO. A white guy in a largely non-white country sticks out like a sore thumb, especially a fugitive. Rescinding use of his various online accounts, utilizing cash and public transportation as well as altering his appearance and working on his accent, he would've easily blended into the masses here. LE has a hard enough time tracking down some serious domestic offenders as it is.
As mentioned in the article, he was living in an apartment above an expat bar, on the very touristy riverside strip in Phnom Penh. It sounds like he wasn't really trying to hide. Perhaps because he was chronically ill, and needed to make frequent hospital visits anyway?
I think it's pretty unlikely, even if he did take various measures to hide, that he'd be able to if influential foreign governments were putting pressure on the Cambodian government to find him. Cambodia is a pretty tiny country.
I'm really surprised he was on an "international wanted list", I mean come on you don't have to agree/disagree that piirate bay is good/bad but I'm sure that if you kill your neighbor and leave the country you won't be on such list and it would be able real people, here it's about digital good (but it also affects real people) nevertheless I really think it's too much
A farmer from my region had a red notice issued by INTERPOL, it sounds impressive. What did he supposedly do? He is a potato farmer and was accused of selling low quality potatoes to Algeria.
He spent more than a year in a jail in Lebanon waiting for the Canadian government to sort it out, they took their sweet time.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/story/2012/06/27...
Things like killing your neighbour and then leaving the country is pretty much what the international wanted list is for. Interpol mostly deals with ordinary crime and very rarely calls on Jackie Chan.
In my opinion, it is shameful he ran away. C'mon -- it was only 12 months jailtime; most likely he would be let go after 3-4 months for a good behavior. Serving this time he would be, technically, off the LE charts. This way he is just another "criminal on the run" and now sure prosecutor will be looking for more jailtime.
He didn't "run away", he was already in Cambodia at the time of the trial & appeal. http://torrentfreak.com/jail-sentence-for-pirate-bay-co-foun... (edited for correctness)
And how is not coming to your trial not running away?
It says he was sick and in another country and the article posted today says he's still sick - would you go to a country that you're not currently living in, when you're seriously ill and in hospital, in order to go on trial and then to go to jail? Hell, for all we know, he was in hospital and didn't hear about it until after the trial. We don't know the circumstances.
The rules are different for people who run web sites we like.
Because that would be running TOWARDS the trial.
Why should he go back to a country he has left just to have a trial?
Because if you don't show up they could send you to jail anyway without you having had a chance to make full defense?
Spoken as someone who is ignorant of the horrors of being in jail for extended periods.
Word on the internets is Swedish prisons are horrorfree.
Of course, after Sweden extradites him to the US, the horror quotient may vary somewhat.
Might have something to do with the $1 million dollar fine rather than the 1yr sentence.
Since he only got 12 months of jail time, he can't get released early, and thus has to serve his full sentence.
If it wasn't for prison rape, I'd love to have those 12 months of free food and roof, and lots of time to study.
It's fascinating the way torrentfreak can play this audience.
How is reporting news "playing an audience"?
It sounds to me like spending time getting 1st world healthcare and staying put in one location for a while might be a blessing in disguise.
Interesting that he seems to be arrested in an apartment where he has stayed in the past.
Some more information (or gossip..)
Frankly, were I in his shoes I would be very tempted to simply serve my sentence in Sweden. The prison system and amenities are (by American standards) very modern, and I would think the healthcare is superior to that in Cambodia as well.
This of course becomes moot if there's any real risk whatsoever of him being extradited to the US as some posters have pointed out. Is there any basis for this claim, or is it purely speculative?
This is just great. Instead of creating service that would be more attractive for users than PB, that greedy cats jail and rob you with giv arms. One should work more on kids minds to make them free from silly wish of watching that movie instead of doing some math for fun, or using MS wares instead of emacs :-) In this case there will be no need for PB, MS and WB alltogether.
I'm pretty sure this has nothing to do with The Pirate Bay at all.
Based on what?
Well that sucks. The US govt probably bribed the Cambodian govt into arresting him on a trumped up charge.
Right. Blame America for Sweeden. Besides the guy's entire MO was distributing stolen files. In the article, the guy's t-shirt says it all. Anyway you slice it, he's no better than the Russian mobsters that steal credit card numbers. If you think everything should be free, then please leave your address so I can help myself to your stuff.
"Anyway you slice it, he's no better than the Russian mobsters that steal credit card numbers."
That's incorrect. He is better than the Russian mobsters that steal credit card numbers. I have presented as much evidence and analysis for my conclusion as you did, so they must be equally valid.
"If you think everything should be free, then please leave your address so I can help myself to your stuff."
I am happy to describe to you something I own so that you can make a copy of it. Gosh, it's almost as if copying something isn't actually the same as taking a physical object from someone.
"I am happy to describe to you something I own so that you can make a copy of it"
Fantastic - your comment history indicates you're a programmer of some kind, running a company. I'm sure you've got some interesting insights into this field. If you could just write them up into a decent book, edit it properly so I can understand it, make it pithy, smart and worth reading so I can get the most of your "description", pay someone to draw some decent diagrams, etc, and then ship it over, that'd be great.
But because it's just "information", and can be replicated freely, I'm not going to pay you to do any of that. I just want the "information" - the production costs are all up to you. So noone's out anything, any this is a perfectly reasoning thing to expect, right?
if selling information was your main source of income, and you spent 10 years of hard work getting to a point where large audience was ready to reward your creativity, you most likely would care if someone else gave away a free copy of it for some ad revenue.
I think the guy's platform was a bit more nuanced than just "steal all da things". He DID help provide a service that overwhelmingly assists pirating of of movies/shows/software/music/etc. But their entire platform is that digital can not be contained. I can't say right or wrong, but I can say copying != stealing. But, if you want my address, fine.... you are welcome to exact copies of my stuff as long as the originals remain.
The pirate bay is a directory that helps people get together that are often doing illegal things. The site does not actually know the contents of the files. It does not participate in the behavior. It's better than people that actually deal in credit card numbers.
The idea of trumped up charges is still pretty nonsensical.
There are lots of problems with modern copyright (http://zacharyalberico.com/day/2012/01/24 - specific to US law, but explains some of it)
In this case though the pirate bay was a tracker/index site and didn't actually host any infringing materials. At the time it operated in Sweden this wasn't a crime. It's largely speculated that the US involved themselves to pressure Sweden to prosecute, but I don't know how substantiated that opinion is.
Stealing is not the same as duplicating.
Apple = Big Brother