Australia Network News
Lawyers for former Khmer Rouge head of state Khieu Samphan have lost an appeal at the United Nations-backed genocide tribunal underway in Cambodia to have his case-file translated into French.
Khieu Samphan and his legal team had argued that French was one of the court's three official languages, and that if the associated documents were not available in that language, he would not receive a fair trial.
The appeal was lodged with the tribunal late last year, with Khieu Samphan's French lawyer, Jacques Verges, arguing that less than 3 percent of the 60,000-page case file had been translated into French.
However Judge Prak Kimsan, the head of the tribunal's pre-trial chamber, ruled the appeal was inadmissible because the court's rules do not provide for appeals relating to translation issues.
Mr Verges, who has defended some of the world's most controversial figures, including the Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie, is defending 77-year-old Khieu Samphan, one of five leaders of the Khmer Rouge regime.
The group are being tried separately at the tribunal, for crimes relating to the deaths of up to 2 million Cambodians during the Khmer Rouge's period in office from 1975-1979.
Earlier this week the trial began of Khmer prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, better known by his alias Duch.
Khieu Samphan and his legal team had argued that French was one of the court's three official languages, and that if the associated documents were not available in that language, he would not receive a fair trial.
The appeal was lodged with the tribunal late last year, with Khieu Samphan's French lawyer, Jacques Verges, arguing that less than 3 percent of the 60,000-page case file had been translated into French.
However Judge Prak Kimsan, the head of the tribunal's pre-trial chamber, ruled the appeal was inadmissible because the court's rules do not provide for appeals relating to translation issues.
Mr Verges, who has defended some of the world's most controversial figures, including the Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie, is defending 77-year-old Khieu Samphan, one of five leaders of the Khmer Rouge regime.
The group are being tried separately at the tribunal, for crimes relating to the deaths of up to 2 million Cambodians during the Khmer Rouge's period in office from 1975-1979.
Earlier this week the trial began of Khmer prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, better known by his alias Duch.
8 comments:
Very amusing! Mr Samphan KR Angkar smashed 2 millions of his own people without a trial, now he is asking for fairness because of lack of translation. Can Samphan do the translation for his French lawyer. After all he earned a Dr degree from France.
good, i'm glad the court think differently. more power to the court of law. thank you and god bless cambodia.
yes, it's up to the court of law to decide; nobody is above the law, period. cambodia had enough of that already in the past, now it is different and better, of course! god bless cambodia.
is not a fair trial is no justice and is there no justice ==>> POL POT regime period .
Does Cambodian ever learn anything about their own country and what's going on? very short sighted people indeed after reading their comments.
Don't use Language issue as a mean to block the KRT. French lawyer is nor ignorant of English. Let the Franchophony aside.
Why is international court only speak english?
What a fake?
International standard only contains English, hahaha, LOL, hahaha, ROFLMAO, .... hahahahahaha
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