A man whose mother survived the Cambodian killing fields only to be stabbed to death by a neighbour after emigrating as a refugee to New Zealand has forgiven her killer, a newspaper reported Tuesday. ( dpa )
Pheap Im was 34 when she was the target of a frenzied attack by Janine Rongonui, who stabbed the victim 150 times because she refused to babysit for her.
Her son, who was 14 at the time, and his 12-year-old sister found their mother dead, covered in blood and the house ransacked, in June 1998 when they returned from school to their home in a Wellington suburb.
Rongonui, now 43, whose murder conviction was reduced on appeal to 10-and-a-half years for manslaughter, has been released on parole into the care of a mental-health service provider, the Dominion Post reported.
Im's son, who asked not to be identified, told the paper that he had forgiven his mother's killer.
"It's sometimes hard, but as a Christian you want to forgive people's mistakes," he said.