But the independent parties of the left were generally targeted for destruction. On October 9, 1959 the editor of the Pracheachon Weekly Paper, Nop Bophann was shot to death outside his office by state security police. In 1960, some 2,000 people were detained for political reasons in a holding camp outside the capital. State Security cases were handled by a military tribunal from which there was no appeal. The tribunal handed down over 39 death decrees in its first six months of operation and it was widely known that the verdicts were the personal decision of Sihanouk.