Bangkok, Oct 13 (IANS/EFE): Three members of Cambodia's security forces have been arrested for murdering a journalist who was investigating illegal logging in the northeast of the country, media reported.

The journalist, 49-year-old Taing Try, was killed late Sunday while travelling with five other reporters in three cars to a warehouse storing high quality wood in Kratie province.

Try was shot with a single bullet to the head when his colleagues left him alone to seek help after their cars were stuck on a dirt road.

The attackers fled in a four-wheel drive which overturned some 200 metres away from the crime scene, the daily said.

The journalists were investigating the involvement in the illegal timber trade of the brother of the military police chief in Snuol in Kratie province.

The attackers' car belonged to a local police chief in the neighbouring province of Mondulkiri, who was arrested hours later along with a soldier from the same region and a Phnom Penh military policeman believed to have shot Try.

The journalist's death follows those of reporter Hang Serei Oudom and activist Chut Wutti, murdered in 2012 by security forces agents linked to illegal logging groups.

Smuggling of high quality wood, which has destroyed forests in large areas of Southeast Asia, is fuelled by growing demand in China.