Police in Phnom Penh are questioning four suspects after they were arrested on Friday for purse snatchings that led to the deaths to two women in March and April.

Phnom Penh police minor crimes bureau chief Bun Satya on Sunday identified the four suspects as Lay Pich Panha, Thea Rapy, Sok Leng and Sun Theara, all men in their 20s.

He said the four were being questioned by the Phnom Penh municipal police officers and have not yet been sent to court. “Authorities have not completed questioning them,” he said.

Boeung Keng Kang district police chief Sim Piseth said on Sunday that the four suspects snatched the purse of a victim in his district. Authorities cooperated and arrested them in different locations.

The Interior Ministry’s Criminal Police Department detained a suspect while Phnom Penh municipal police detained the other three. “The authorities questioned them just in case there are other related cases,” he said.

A Phnom Penh municipal police officer who asked to remain anonymous told The Post on Sunday that Theara was detained at the Stung Meanchey II commune, Meanchey district, Phnom Penh, on Saturday after the arrest of the other three.

The four told police they snatched the bag of the victim Tan Layhout causing her to crash her motorbike in Boeung Keng Kang. She died after succumbing to her injuries.

Another case took place on Stung Meanchey Bridge. The female victim also fell from her motorbike and died. And in yet another case at Wat Koh, they threw stones at a man and robbed him, police said.

The suspects confessed that they rode a motorbike with three people along a road in TumnopTeuk commune.

They saw a girl riding a motorbike carrying a purse. As it was quiet and they decided to snatch her purse. The victim wanted her purse back and chased them which caused her to fall off the motorbike, causing her death.

The National Police said Panha also confessed that besides the above case on April 9, the men snatched the purse of Hong Sokcheng.

The victim rode her bike in pursuit and crashed into a cart on Stung Meanchey Bridge, killing her.