Rights activist seeks victim status in "stalled" war crimes cases

Apr 4, 2011
DPA

Phnom Penh - A Cambodian-American human rights activist whose parents were murdered by the Khmer Rouge filed an application Monday at the UN-backed war crimes tribunal asking that it recognize her as a victim in two cases still under investigation.

Theary Seng said she had done so partly in an effort to pressure the court to continue investigating five former Khmer Rouge cadres for crimes committed during the regime's bloody rule from 1975-79.

Last year, the tribunal sentenced security chief Comrade Duch to 35 years. That verdict is being appealed. The court is expected to commence hearings against four senior leaders of the movement later this year.

But the court has also been investigating another five ex-Khmer Rouge. They are referred to as cases three and four, and would constitute the last cases the tribunal would hear.

However, those investigations appear to have stalled since Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen stated he would not permit any of them to be prosecuted, citing a risk to national stability.

Hun Sen's comments raised fears of political interference at the court.

Theary Seng said she hoped her application for civil party status in cases three and four would encourage other victims to come forward and file applications.

'By doing it publicly it creates a safe space (in an arena) that is politically charged, and (in an investigation) that has been stalled,' she said. 'And also because this has been a case where overt political interference is widely known, and politicians have been able to get away with interfering in the process.'

The court has not released the names of those under investigation in cases three and four, but Theary Seng said she felt she had enough information to name two of the five, both of whom were senior figures in the military structure of the Khmer Rouge.

She said her legal argument was based on the premise that the two men had 'contributed to the common plan that was the policy of the whole of the Khmer Rouge, and that resulted in arrests and executions including the deaths of my parents.'

A spokesman for the tribunal, Lars Olsen, said the names that Theary Seng had published were 'pure speculation,' adding that it was 'reckless and contrary to judicial due process' to do so.

Comrade Duch is the only person the international court has convicted of crimes committed under the Khmer Rouge regime. During its rule as many as 2.2 million people died from execution, overwork, illness and starvation.