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Cambodian friends

PHNOM PENH, (Cambodia): A disagreement between two Cambodian friends over what the new millennium might portend turned into a bloody brawl leaving one of them dead and the other seriously injured, a newspaper and police reported on Saturday.

Kao Ly, 72, died from a head wound inflicted by his neighbour Tan Sokha, 58, in Phnom Penh on Thursday night after they disagreed over a local superstition that unless people eat three sticky rice cakes for the new year they will die, Koh Santepheap newspaper reported.

Sokha told Ly that without eating the cakes "death would be unavoidable." After Ly said that was untrue, they started fighting, until Sokha beat Ly's head so hard with a wooden stick that he died from a bleeding head wound, said Phnom Penh police chief Suon Chheang.

Ly's son, Kao Savuth, 23, then took revenge for his father by beating Sokha on the head with a stick as well, seriously injuring him.

Chheang said, police are preparing to file criminal charges against both Sokha and Savuth.-APP