Reporters, VOA Khmer | Phnom Penh
“I just think that if the court tries only four senior-most Khmer Rouge leaders, it’s not justice, because it does not reach completion, and other cases are kept secret.”
Defense teams for three of four jailed Khmer Rouge leaders facing trial at the UN-backed tribunal argued Wednesday that a 10-year statute of limitations under previous Cambodian law precluded their clients from trial.
The lawyers made their arguments on the third day of a preliminary hearing that marks the official beginning of the court’s most important trial, as people across the country viewed the proceedings on television.
Lawyers for Khieu Samphan, the nominal head of the regime; Ieng Sary, its foreign minister; and Ieng Thirith, social minister, said the 1956 penal code of Cambodia put a 10-year limitation on trials.
“Under the penal code of 1956, the prescription of the crime is limited to within 10 years,” Phat Pouv Seang, a Cambodian defense lawyer for Ieng Thirith, told the court, in arguments echoed by lawyers for the other two.
Defense for Nuon Chea, the chief ideologue of the regime, did not join the arguments.
All four have said they are innocent of the charges against them, including war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. The hearing is aimed at answering such legal questions before the trial starts in earnest later this year.
Despite the nature of the hearing, it has already provided a major boost in coverage of the tribunal process, which began in 2006 and saw the trial in 2009 of the chief of the Khmer Rouge’s most notorious prison, Tuol Sleng.
National coverage of the hearing has provided a chance for everyday Cambodians to consider the crimes of the regime and the role of the UN-backed court.
Yuth Thing Dy, who is now 43 and lost five relatives under the Khmer Rouge, said from Banteay Meanchey province that he has watched the proceedings on TV and is happy a trial is moving forward, but he wants to see more people indicted.
“I just think that if the court tries only four senior-most Khmer Rouge leaders, it’s not justice, because it does not reach completion, and other cases are kept secret,” he told VOA Khmer.
The court is locked in debate over two more cases at the court that would require indictments for five additional senior leaders. Those two cases are opposed by Prime Minister Hun Sen and other officials, angering victim representatives who say they want the court to broaden its prosecutions.
Lao Lay Heng, 53, from Oddar Meanchey province, said he lost 13 relatives during the regime’s four-year rule. He was happy that a trial for the four top leaders is making progress, he said, “and I hope that the victims will receive justice.”
“I see the trial as historic, and it will be a model for young Cambodian leaders not to follow the style of the Khmer Rouge and not to carry out a dictatorship,” he said.
3 comments:
the theather court instructed by CPP.
The World Court Khmer Rouge Trial
should be fair and justice.
Because it is for a good model of
the other countries in the world.
Cambodia govt shouldn't intervene
in this court.
While acknowledging the mass atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge regime, we should never forget the level of atrocities committed during the US secretive bombing of Cambodia from 1968-1973. A declassified telephone discussion between Henry Kissinger and General Alexander Haig, Nixon's deputy assistant for national security affairs, recorded that Nixon had ordered a “massive bombing campaign in Cambodia [to use] anything that flys [sic] on anything that moves”.
The map of US bombing targets released by Yale University’s Cambodian Genocide Program shows that more than half of the country was affected by the indiscriminate bombings. Professor Ben Kierman, director of the program, puts the casualties figure from the bombing at 150,000 deaths, while Edward Herman, a professor of Wharton School, and Noam Chomsky put the toll at 600,000 using figures provided by a Finnish Commission of Inquiry.
Based on this, we can never naively claim that US bombing led to the mass executions by the Khmer Rouge or refuted the regime's mass atrocities. But, to certain extent, the blanket bombing, which directly led to the destruction of livestock and agricultural land, could have definitely played a role in the mass starvation.
From new data released during the Clinton administration, Taylor Owen, a doctoral student at Oxford University, and Professor Kierman noted that 2,756,941 tons of bombs were dropped on Cambodia.
To put the figure into perspective, just over 2 million tons of bombs were dropped by the allies during all of World War II. The bombs dropped in Cambodia represented about 184 Hiroshima atomic bombs combined, making Cambodia the most bombed nation in the world. Based on the new data, Professor Kierman also stressed that the casualties might be much higher than his earlier predicted 150,000
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