One of them is Mu Sochua, the vice-president of the Cambodia National Rescue Party.

She was held on Wednesday night at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) ahead of her planned return home to lead anti-government demonstrations.

Jerald Joseph, an official of the Malaysian Human Rights Commission (Suhakam), said the Cambodians would stay in a hotel for now.

“Sochua has a visa until Nov 12,” he said, adding he did not know the length of the visa granted to the other two.

Sochua fled Cambodia in 2017 fearing arrest amid a mass crackdown on the opposition.

Thailand had refused entry to Sochua, a former women’s affairs minister, on Oct 20. Using her US passport, she later flew to Malaysia, where she was detained at KLIA.

Two other opposition leaders trying to fly to Thailand, presumably to cross into Cambodia by land, were also detained.

Cambodia’s self-exiled opposition party founder Sam Rainsy, who has vowed to return to his home country to lead demonstrations against authoritarian rule, said he was prevented today from checking in for a flight from Paris to Bangkok.

Rainsy told Reuters at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport that Thai Airways staff refused to allow him to board but that he would not be deterred from trying again.

Rainsy, a former finance minister and the founder of the now-banned opposition Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP), has lived in exile in France since fleeing Cambodia four years ago following a conviction for criminal defamation. He also faces a five-year prison sentence in a separate case.

He says the charges were politically motivated to destroy opposition to longtime Prime Minister Hun Sen.

Hun Sen, whose government has arrested some 50 opposition activists inside Cambodia and deployed troops to the border, has characterised the returning leaders’ planned rallies as an attempted coup.