Local rights group Suaram has urged the government not to deport former Phnom Penh police chief Heng Pov who is wanted by the Cambodian authorities in connection with a series of crimes, including the murder of a judge.

Suaram believes that he will face torture and possible death if sent home.

Heng Pov, who was Phnom Penh's police chief up until July, is wanted by the Cambodian government in connection with two assassinations and three attempted murders.

However, he claims to have been framed by Cambodian strongman, Prime Minister Hun Sen.

Heng Pov was detained by the Malaysian police on Oct 3 and since then he has held in an unknown place and has not been in touch with his wife and lawyers.

Suaram today submitted a memorandum to the Human Rights Commission (Suhakam), urging the government against extraditing the 51-year-old former police chief.

Suaram called for an end to the incommunicado detention and urged the government to provide a safe passage for Heng Pov, his wife and their two-year-old son to a third country.

Suhakam commissioner N Siva Subramaniam ( photo: right ), who received the memorandum at the commission's headquarters in Kuala Lumpur, said the watchdog will look into the human rights violations concerning this case.

"He must gain access to family and lawyers to ensure that he is given protection. But going deeper into the case, the lawyers would have to take up the case, it is the lawyers who have to take up the pertinent points," he said.

Heng Pov entered Singapore on July 23 and was arrested on Sept 1 for overstaying. Singaporean authorities deported him on the same day to Malaysia.

He was arrested two days later while staying at a hotel in Bandar Sunway, Selangor.

Habeas corpus application

"We have written to the police, Interpol and the Ministry of Internal Security on Oct 4 and again on Sept 7. There was no reply. His wife doesn't even know where he is," said lawyer Edmund Bon.

On Oct 6, Heng Pov's wife filed an habeas corpus application - a writ for her husband to be brought before the court - in an attempt to prevent the government from deporting him to Cambodia.

"This might not be enough," said Suaram executive director Yap Swee Seng, who fears that the Immigration Department may go ahead with the deportation process as in the case of former Internal Security Act detainee Mohd Iqbal .

Mohd Iqbal was deported to Indonesia in May 2004 on the same day the court granted his habeas corpus application.

Heng Pov was convicted and sentenced to 18 years in absentia by the Cambodian government on Sept 18 for his role in the 2003 murder of municipal court judge Sok Setha Mony.

He is also alleged to have been involved in the attempted murder of a newspaper publisher, a prosecutor, the national military chief and city council officials.

However, the former police chief claimed that he is being framed by Hun Sen, after having a fall-out with the Cambodian strongman.

"My government has been mounting a propaganda campaign against me since I left Cambodia ... I think it is time that I told the whole world my story and hopefully by doing so I can clear my already muddied name," said Heng Pov, who was once a government insider.

"I am nothing like what I have been accused of and I have never committed any of the crimes that they have alleged," he added in a nine-page statement published on his blog .