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Reuters

But a robbery charge against the pair, which carried a maximum 10-year prison term, has been dropped and they now face a maximum sentence of three years on a lesser charge, officials at Sihanoukville provincial court said yesterday.

The officials said Kim Sen and Meas Minear of the local human rights group Licadho would probably be put on trial late next month.

"We've dropped everything except one charge - leading a demonstration which became violent and resulted in damage to public and private property," court prosecutor Mourn Mith told Reuters by telephone from the southern port city.

Court director Houn Mony said the robbery charge had been dropped in mid-May.

"The investigating judge and the prosecutor decided to drop the charge of robbery because they found no grounds, but it was found that the demonstration was illegal, there was incitement to violence and damage of public and private property," he said.

Kim Sen and Meas Minear were arrested in late December after violent demonstrations erupted in Sihanoukville following the discovery of nearly 3,000 tonnes of hazardous waste imported from Taiwan earlier that month.

In two days of protests some local government offices were stoned and a hotel housing a state shipping agency was looted. The home of the province's then deputy governor was also attacked and looted. One person was killed in the violence.

The two rights workers denied any wrongdoing. They said they had been approached by angry citizens and only gave advice on how they might legally protest against the waste dumping. After the protest turned violent, they said they had monitored it in line with their duty as rights workers.

The U.S.-based group Human Rights Watch said in a report late last week that all charges against the pair should be dropped.

"Kim Sen and Meas Minear are being prosecuted for actions that were well within their human rights mandate. Their only 'crimes' were to provide information on human rights and the law to people who requested advice," the group said.

"The charges against Kim Sen and Meas Minear...should immediately be dismissed," Human Rights Watch said.

The U.N. secretary general's representative for human rights in Cambodia, Thomas Hammarberg, has also said there was no shred of evidence against the pair, who were held in prison for several weeks before being released on bail.

The rubble-like waste, imported by a local firm from Taiwan's Formosa Plastics, was found to contain high levels of mercury. Formosa Plastics later removed the material from Cambodia.

Eight other people, including the director of the local firm that imported the material, are facing various charges in connection with the incident, the court officials said.