Phnom Penh (dpa) - The beginning of the long-awaited trial of former senior officials in the Khmer Rouge regime of Cambodia has again been delayed due to a shortage of qualified Cambodian staff, trial officials told a press conference Wednesday.
Top United Nations representative to the proposed tribunal, Michelle Lee, and her Cambodian counterpart Sean Visoth told reporters that although 11 UN staff had already been deployed to begin work, enough applications for Cambodian staff with suitable legal backgrounds had not yet been identified.
"(The prosecution stage) was to start in June. Now it has been delayed," Visoth said, adding that it was hoped the situation would be rectified by July, although it could be later.
The initial prosecution stage is estimated to precede the actual trials of the mostly aging and now often ailing former leaders by at least a year.
Candidates to stand trial for the deaths of up to two million Cambodians from starvation, disease, torture, executions and overwork during the regime's 1975 to 1979 reign have not yet been finalised.
The ultra-Maoist Khmer Rouge's Democratic Kampuchea regime decimated the nation's infrastructure during its drive to convert Cambodia into an agrarian utopia devoid of social classes, markets, religion and even money.
The Cambodian education system remains in tatters nearly three decades on, making suitable candidates hard to find, according to experts.
However advocates of a trial have warned that any tribunal must take place soon, or risk it never happening at all. The regime's leader, Pol Pot, died in 1998, and many of the prime candidates for trial are aged in their 70s or 80s.
Top United Nations representative to the proposed tribunal, Michelle Lee, and her Cambodian counterpart Sean Visoth told reporters that although 11 UN staff had already been deployed to begin work, enough applications for Cambodian staff with suitable legal backgrounds had not yet been identified.
"(The prosecution stage) was to start in June. Now it has been delayed," Visoth said, adding that it was hoped the situation would be rectified by July, although it could be later.
The initial prosecution stage is estimated to precede the actual trials of the mostly aging and now often ailing former leaders by at least a year.
Candidates to stand trial for the deaths of up to two million Cambodians from starvation, disease, torture, executions and overwork during the regime's 1975 to 1979 reign have not yet been finalised.
The ultra-Maoist Khmer Rouge's Democratic Kampuchea regime decimated the nation's infrastructure during its drive to convert Cambodia into an agrarian utopia devoid of social classes, markets, religion and even money.
The Cambodian education system remains in tatters nearly three decades on, making suitable candidates hard to find, according to experts.
However advocates of a trial have warned that any tribunal must take place soon, or risk it never happening at all. The regime's leader, Pol Pot, died in 1998, and many of the prime candidates for trial are aged in their 70s or 80s.
2 comments:
reason after reason, excuse after excuse...They continue to play a political games to stall this Trial from happening. They will delay this and at the same time they will have their people running around and do away those old age Khmer Rouge Leaders just like they did to Pol Pot.
It'll be a miracle if we do get justice for the deads.
Only if we can change the regime!
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