KRouge leader Khieu Samphan to be hospitalised in Phnom Penh [on Hun Sen's order]

PHNOM PENH, Nov 14, 2007 (AFP) — Former Khmer Rouge leader Khieu Samphan, whose imminent arrest by Cambodia's UN-backed genocide court is widely expected, will be hospitalised Wednesday, Prime Minister Hun Sen said.

The 76-year-old will be flown from his home in the former rebel stronghold of Pailin, in northwest Cambodia, to the capital Phnom Penh for treatment after suffering unusually high blood pressure Tuesday night, Hun Sen said.

"I have ordered a helicopter to transfer him to hospital," he said at a graduation ceremony.

Earlier Wednesday, Khieu Samphan's wife, Sor Socheat, said her husband's health had returned to normal after an apparent panic attack overnight.

"He was suffering from high blood pressure but he's back to normal now," Sor Socheat told AFP.

Khieu Samphan, the Khmer Rouge's former head of state, was ready to face court, she said, just days after two other senior regime cadre were arrested for their alleged roles in one of the 20th century's most brutal regimes.

"He is not worried about being arrested. He has been ready to face the tribunal for a long time now," she said, speaking from Pailin, where Khieu Samphan has lived since surrendering to the government in 1998.

A family friend who did not want to be named said Khieu Samphan had been "happily" discussing the tribunal, which was established last year to try former Khmer Rouge leaders for crimes committed during their 1975-79 rule.

Up to two million people were executed, or died of starvation and overwork when the regime tried to forge an agrarian utopia, abolishing religion, money and schools, and driving nearly the entire population onto vast collective farms.

Former regime foreign minister Ieng Sary and his wife Ieng Thirith, who was social affairs minister, were arrested Monday and charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity, bringing to four the number of former Khmer Rouge facing the tribunal.

Khmer Rouge ideologue Nuon Chea and prison chief Duch have also been detained.

Khieu Samphan, a French-educated radical whose Marxist theories loosely influenced the communist Khmer Rouge's policies, is widely believed to be the fifth person who will be arrested by the court.