Phnom Penh - Cambodia's former king and independence leader Norodom Sihanouk has overcome a third bout of cancer, according to a hand-written note posted on his personal website. The 86-year-old retired monarch, who travelled to Beijing for treatment in July, said his "devoted" Chinese doctors had successfully treated him for B-cell lymphoma, which attacks blood cells crucial to the body's immune system.
"In the PET scan there is no longer any trace of cancer," he wrote in the letter from Beijing dated Monday. "Thus, thanks to the friendship, fraternity, generosity, the knowledge and medical action of the glorious People's Republic of China, my three successive and very serious cancers have been successfully and completely healed."
Sihanouk abdicated and was replaced by his son Norodom Sihamoni in 2004, but the king-father remains an important figure in Cambodian politics.
He was appointed king by Cambodia's French rulers in 1941, but in 1955 Sihanouk abandoned the throne to become prime minister.
After being overthrown in a military coup in 1970, Sihanouk sided with the Maoist Khmer Rouge, who came to power in 1975 and oversaw the deaths of up to 2 million people until Vietnam invaded in 1979.
He was forced out of office again and remained virtually imprisoned in the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh during most of the Khmer Rouge's rule.
Sihanouk returned to the throne in 1993, but frequently travelled to Beijing for treatment for a range of illnesses.
He was first diagnosed with cancer in 1993 and suffered a second bout in 2005.
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