Prince Norodom Ranariddh died in France on Sunday, the Cambodian Information Minister announced on Facebook.
The former Prime Minister of Cambodia (1993 - 1997) succumbed to an illness at the age of 77, said the minister, Khieu Kanharith, citing a palace source.
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Elected Prime Minister of Cambodia in 1993 after years of civil war, Prince Ranariddh was ousted in a bloody coup in 1997 by forces loyal to the current Prime Minister Hun Sen.
In a letter of condolence to the prince's widow, Hun Sen lamented “the loss of a remarkable royal dignitary who loved the nation, religion and the king”.
Half-brother of the current King Norodom Sihamoni, Prince Ranariddh, member of the royal family most engaged in politics, had an eventful political career, marked by periods of exile alternating with the exercise of responsibilities.
He won the 1993 elections under the auspices of the UN as a candidate of the royalist Funcinpec party but was forced to accept Hun Sen, the loser in the ballot, as second prime minister.
After being deposed in 1997 during a coup by Hun Sen, he pursued a checkered political career, marked by periods of exile, two failed attempts to return to political life, and court cases. having earned him convictions.
He was notably found guilty of fraud and embezzlement, and dismissed from his post as president of Funcinpec, before being pardoned in 2008.
In 2015, he made an unexpected alliance with the man who ousted him from the post of prime minister, returning to the presidency of Funcinpec in order to work with Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party.
He experienced a personal tragedy in 2018 when he lost his second wife Ouk Phalla, who was killed at the age of 39 in a traffic accident while the couple were traveling during an election campaign.
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In a statement, Funcinpec announced that his body would soon be repatriated to Cambodia.
For his part, the American Ambassador to Cambodia Patrick Murphy expressed his condolences.