More Kampot Euthanasia News ???

Well, this crackpot American has had his first court appearence

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A Californian man accused of defaming a sleepy Cambodian province by promoting it as the perfect place to commit suicide has defended himself on Thursday, saying he meant nobody any harm.

"I am an old man in a small town in Cambodia. I don't want to cause any trouble for anybody. But I do have my own beliefs which, if I can, I will tell people about," Roger Graham, 57, told Reuters after appearing in court in Kampot, a coastal town.

Graham, who runs the Blue Mountain Coffee and Internet Cafe, was answering a lawsuit lodged against him by Kampot's provincial governor Puth Chandarith over of his Web site www.euthanasiaincambodia.com.

"If they want to throw me out of the country, they can. All I want to do is to run a little cafe and live the rest of my life in peace. I intend to die here," he said.

Still emerging from decades of war, including the Khmer Rouge genocide of the 1970s in which 1.7 million people died, Cambodia has no laws governing euthanasia or assisted suicide, and the issue does not rank as a high priority in what is one of Asia's poorest nations.

Despite this, the government has come under pressure to close the Web site after the suicide of a 47-year-old British woman whose relatives believe its message -- "You're going to die anyway, so why not in Cambodia?" -- influenced her decision.

Since the controversy blew up a month ago, Graham said nearly half a million people had visited his Web site, which reopened two weeks ago after a temporary closure, compared to a paltry 1,600 per month before.

"Saying euthanasia harms Cambodia's tourism does not make sense. Around 450,000 visitors have looked at my Web Site and some of those will come here," he said with a smile.

He also stood by his convictions that individuals had the right to choose the time and place of their death, and, given the absence of any relevant laws, Cambodia made sense as a location.

"This is a good place for them to choose if they want to do," Graham told Reuters in his small cafe, overlooking a river.

"Kampot is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. I get to see the sun rise and the sun set. I get people coming by and saying hello with smiling and happy faces."

Prosecutors who questioned Graham said they had not filed any charges against Graham and needed more time to make a decision.