A businessman was arrested in Phnom Penh on Monday night after he accidentally shot a military police officer in the buttocks with an M16 assault rifle as the two played around with the loaded weapon inside a parked pickup truck, police said Tuesday.

Chi Model, 24, who owns a motorbike rental business, and his friend Pich Thearith, 36, a military police officer, had been sitting in Mr. Thearith’s Toyota Tacoma at the intersection of Norodom and Sihanouk boulevards at about 8 p.m. when the incident occurred, according to deputy Daun Penh district military police commander Khlouk Dara.

Mr. Dara said Mr. Model had been playfully pointing Mr. Thearith’s standard-issue M16 at its owner when the gun went off, sending a round through the military police officer’s right buttock.

“We arrested him on the spot after the gun was fired because our forces were on duty nearby,” he said, adding that Mr. Model was being held at the municipal military police headquarters.

“The victim was sent to Calmette Hospital last night with a serious wound in his bottom’s large flesh,” Mr. Dara said. Khen Sovann, head of the municipal military police’s penal bureau, said Mr. Model would be sent to court Wednesday.

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