UPDATE 1-Cambodia rights activist jailed 20 years on disputed conviction

(Adds statement from EU) By Prak Chan Thul

PHNOM PENH, Oct 1 (Reuters) - A Cambodian court jailed a71-year-old radio broadcaster and land-rights campaigner for 20years on Monday after finding him guilty of leading ananti-state rebellion, a verdict condemned by activists as afurther crackdown on human rights.

Three judges in the Phnom Penh court convicted Sonando, whohas joint Cambodian-French citizenship, and 13 others ofinciting villagers in eastern Kratie province to rebel againstthe government.

Sonando, a long-time rights campaigner and critic of PrimeMinister Hun Sen, stood accused of inciting villagers to take uparms and of aiming to recruit up to a million people to topplethe government, charges his supporters say were trumped up.

Hun Sen urged in a nationally broadcast speech in June thatSonando be arrested for masterminding "a plot to overthrow thegovernment and attempting to establish a state within a state".

Sonando, the head of Beehive Radio, had pleaded not guilty.

The number of land disputes in Cambodia has exploded inrecent years as the economy grows rapidly and companies move toexploit natural resources such as rubber, sugar, and minerals.

Human rights groups have accused Hun Sen's authoritariangovernment of riding roughshod over land rights by granting hugeeconomic land concessions to companies and then evictingland-dwellers by force.

The World Bank froze new lending to Cambodia last year andsaid it would not resume loans until the government didsomething to help hundreds of families facing eviction from landaround a lake in Phnom Penh.

A spokesperson for the EU High Representative, CatherineAshton, said in a statement that the conviction "raises severedoubts about the impartiality and independence of the court".

The EU has come under pressure from activists to freeze atrade initiative that allows Cambodia to export goodstariff-free to Europe. Critics say it has contributed to landgrabs in sectors such as sugar production.

Sonando's supporters say he was persecuted for criticisingthe government. He raised a victory sign as he was led,handcuffed, to a prison van after the verdict, saying he was"proud".

Ou Virak, president of the Cambodian Center for HumanRights, said the court had not produced any evidence to supporta guilty verdict.

"I am really disappointed that after many decades our courtis not a respectable institution that can find justice forpeople," he said. "I see that the verdict was written bypoliticians."

The court sentenced two other defendants to 30 and 15 yearsin jail in absentia.

"Today's verdict only serves to demonstrate, yet again, thatthe courts in Cambodia have been increasingly used as a tool forrepression," the International Federation for Human Rights saidin a statement.

The U.N. Human Rights Council's Special Rapporteur forCambodia said last week that Cambodia's population was growing"increasingly desperate and unhappy" over land-rights abuses.

In recent months, one of Cambodia's leading environmentalcampaigners was shot dead and a journalist who wrote about landissues was found dead in the trunk of a car.

In Kratie province, a 14-year-old girl was killed in Maywhen security forces fired on villagers whom Sonando was foundguilty of assisting.

(Writing by Stuart Grudgings; Editing by Nick Macfie)

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Keywords: CAMBODIA LAND/