Ngor Slain For Money, Not Politics

LOS ANGELES - The murder of Oscar-winning Cambodian actor Haing Ngor seemed to some to be the final act of a political saga that began with his torture by the Khmer Rouge and ended with gunshots in an alley of Los Angeles' Chinatown.

Three juries saw it differently.

By convicting three gang members of first-degree murder yesterday, they ruled that Ngor was the victim of street violence, not an assassin's target, and that his killing was about money for drugs, not politics.

"Despite all the early rumors and speculation, this was another example of crime in the streets," said Jack Ong, executive director of the Dr. Haing S. Ngor Foundation, which campaigns against gangs, drugs and youth violence.

Ngor's goddaughter, Sundary Rama, noted the coincidence that the verdicts were returned on the same day that the death of Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot was front-page news.

"I feel it's connected. Pol Pot died and Haing Ngor's memory lives on," she said.

Ngor won an Academy Award for best supporting actor for his portrayal of a translator and assistant for a reporter covering Cambodia's war in the 1984 film "The Killing Fields."

Ngor, who escaped in 1980 from Cambodia, where he was a doctor, was able to draw on his firsthand experience as a victim of torture under Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, which was responsible for killing as many as 2 million Cambodians.

The three Cambodian-born gang members convicted of murdering Ngor were acknowledged members of the Oriental LazyBoyz gang. Tak Sun Tan, 21, and Indra Lim, 20, face sentences of up to life in prison. Jason Chan, 20, faces life in prison without possibility of parole.

Tan was due back in court Monday, when the jury must decide whether two prior robbery convictions make him a "three strikes" offender subject to greater punishment. Sentencing for Chan and Lim was scheduled for May 19.

Three juries who deliberated separately on each defendant's case returned guilty verdicts on first-degree murder and second-degree robbery charges. Separate juries were chosen for the trial because one defendant made statements implicating the others.

None of the panels determined who actually pulled the trigger, but they ruled that one of the participants had a gun on the night Ngor was shot to death in a holdup behind his Chinatown-area apartment.

The prosecution did not seek the death penalty because of the defendants' ages and their lack of significant past criminal records.

With no physical evidence and virtually every witness changing their story on the stand, the prosecution's case was based almost entirely on tape recordings - video and audio - of police interviews with gang members who later recanted.