Phnom Penh: Cambodia's opposition leader Sam Rainsy has delayed returning to his country to face a two-year jail sentence on a politically motivated defamation charge, saying he has been advised not to arrive late at night.
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But Mr Rainsy said in a Facebook post on Monday that he would return "in the next few days," after earlier declaring "I absolutely must go back to rescue our nation".
"If I must die, let it be it," the leader of the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) said in comments from South Korea that were reported by the Phnom Penh Post.
Mr Rainsy survived an assassination attempt in 1997 that killed at least 16 of his supporters.
He said he decided to delay his arrival to the Cambodian capital following advice from pro-democracy groups that he should arrive in daylight hours and allow time for diplomatic intervention.
Earlier on Monday parliament revoked Mr Rainsy's position as an elected MP, stripping him of parliamentary immunity, in the latest move in a campaign of denigration aimed against him and key members of his party by the regime of strongman prime minister Hun Sen.
Cambodian police have confirmed they intend to arrest Mr Rainsy when he arrives back in the country, angering his millions of supporters who could take to the streets to protest.
Mr Hun Sen has established a special arrest commission headed by powerful interior minister Sar Kheng that is tasked with seizing the opposition leader, a long-time foe of Mr Hun Sen.
MPs of Mr Rainsy's party have been told to remain in Phnom Penh ahead of his arrival.
"All of them must stay together … first for safety in case a bad incident takes places and second to join any urgent decision-making," said party spokesman Eng Chhay Eang.
An arrest warrant for Mr Rainsy over an unserved defamation sentence from 2011 was issued by a Cambodian court last Friday, a day after Mr Hun Sen threatened him with legal action after comments made by Mr Rainsy in Japan.
Mr Rainsy had urged Mr Hun Sen, Asia's longest-ruling leader, to move towards a peaceful exit from power and warned that the "wind of freedom that is blowing through the world would reach Cambodia in the near future," a reference to this month's landslide election victory by opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi in neighbouring Myanmar.
Mr Hun Sen, a former commander of the murderous Khmer Rouge in the 1970s, has often brutally crushed political rivals during three decades in power.
In late October two opposition MPs were viciously attacked outside parliament and days later deputy opposition leader Kem Sokha was removed from his post on what observers described as dubious legal grounds
The defamation case relates to comments Mr Rainsy made in 2008 alleging that foreign minister Hor Namhong was implicated in crimes at a Khmer Rouge camp in the late 1970s.
Mr Namhong denied the claims, saying he was a prisoner and victim of the Khmer Rouge.
Cambodia's King Norodom Sihamoni pardoned Mr Rainsy on what he described as other trumped up charges in 2013, allowing him to return from exile weeks later.
However the pardon did not mention the Hor Namhong case.
Hundreds of thousands of supporters packed the streets of the capital Phnom Penh in 2013 when Mr Sam Rainsy returned from exile to fight an election campaign that his party claimed was marred by widespread vote rigging.
