Um Sam An, a fellow former parliamentarian for the C.N.R.P. who is in political exile in the United States, called Mr. Lim Kimya’s death a “political assassination.”
“Dictators around the world are increasingly resorting to transnational repression,” said Sam Rainsy, the onetime president of the party and himself the target of repeated assassination attempts.
Since formally taking over two years ago from his father, Hun Sen, Prime Minister Hun Manet of Cambodia, a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, has shown little evidence of loosening the family’s tight grip on power. Arrests of dissidents have continued. On Tuesday, the day of Mr. Lim Kimya’s killing, Mr. Hun Sen, who still heads Cambodia’s Senate, pushed for the passage of a law that would deem political dissent as terrorism.
Mr. Lim Kimya, who was a dual French and Cambodian citizen, was traveling by land from Cambodia to neighboring Thailand with his French wife. As Thai paramedics tried unsuccessfully to administer C.P.R., she stood near him, his blood spattered on her face.
On Wednesday, the Thai Criminal Court issued a warrant for Ekaluck Paenoi, 41, the motorcyclist who it said was responsible for the fatal shooting.
