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| Former Khmer Rouge leader ex-social affairs minister Ieng Thirith (AFP/ECCC/HO/File, Mark Peters) |
AFP
PHNOM PENH — A major Khmer Rouge trial at Cambodia's UN-backed war crimes court may not hear testimony until next year, observers said Wednesday, amid fears over the mental health of one of the defendants.
The trial against four top leaders of the brutal 1975-79 regime, which began in June, has stalled after a recent decision by judges to order a psychiatric assessment on Ieng Thirith, 79.
Anne Heindel, a legal advisor to the Documentation Centre of Cambodia, which researches Khmer Rouge atrocities, believes the process to determine mental fitness "is likely to take until the end of the year".
That view was echoed by a court official, who told AFP it is "unlikely the trial will get going this year" but asked not to be named.
The elderly defendants face charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity over the deaths of up to two million people, in the court's second and long-awaited trial.
Questions have long been raised over the mental state of the regime's "First Lady" Ieng Thirith, who famously lost her cool during a 2009 court appearance, telling her accusers they would be "cursed to the seventh circle of hell".
Ieng Thirith's lawyers have recently said they are unable to take instructions from her, citing mental problems.
Tribunal spokesman Lars Olsen refused to speculate on a start date but said the court would "shortly" appoint mental health experts to examine the ex-social affairs minister, who is married to co-defendant Ieng Sary.
Both Ieng Thirith and fellow accused "Brother Number Two" Nuon Chea also plan to contest their physical fitness to stand trial at a hearing next week.
The prospect of more delays will upset some victims, who fear not all of the suspects, aged 79 to 85, will live to see a verdict.
"The accused and I are all very old now," said Bou Meng, 70, who was one of few people to survive a notorious Khmer Rouge torture prison.
"I urge the court to work on this case as soon as possible, so that justice will not die with the corpses."
In its historic first trial, the tribunal sentenced former prison chief Kaing Guek Eav -- also known as Duch -- to 30 years in jail last year for overseeing the deaths of 15,000 people. The case is now under appeal.
Led by "Brother Number One" Pol Pot, who died in 1998, the Khmer Rouge wiped out nearly a quarter of the population through starvation, overwork or executions in a bid to create an agrarian utopia.
4 comments:
Ieng Thirith has had an mental problem since before she was arrestec with her husband.
But the real target of this ECCC behind Ieng Thirith mental health problem is to drag this ECCCC on and on to avoid full public hearing .
Wake up all Khmer before it is tool late like Champa,Kampuchea-Krom and Laos.
Do not fall into this Hanoi ECCC .
i told you, stupid KR regime can't last forever, you know! don't be stupid forever, ok, KR lady! the world is way bigger than your oyster, ok! don't forget that, ok! study or learn something about the world, ok! no more ignorance for cambodia from now on! ignorance is not allowed in cambodia anymore, period, ok! and no more isolation for cambodia either! now go sleep in jail for the rest of your low life, ok, you killer of khmer people! talk about backward people! go back to your hunter gatherer's society, ok! your type don't belong in modern cambodia or the modern world, ok!
Mrs. Ieng Thirith was a radio Khmer
broadcaster in Hanoi in 1970.
Let her broadcast in the ECCC room
from 1970 to 2011 or 2012.
Did Khmer Rouge,Vietcong,and Khmer
Vietminh kill them,or some of the others?
Khmer people want four of them telling the truth.
As the victims of the regime Khmer need real Khmer ECCC not this Hanoi ECCC.
Wake up all Khmer one way to find the real killers of Khmer people between 1975-1979 is researching and studying our real history and parts of that history are as fellow:
1. Who Khmer Issarak groups led by Son Ngoc Minh or Achar Mean?
2. Why yuon Viet Minh formed Khmer Viet Minh in 1940s-1950d in Cambodia?
3. Who formed Khmer Rom Dos in 1970s after the fall of Sihanouk regime?
4. Why Khmer Viet Minh like So Phim , Heng Samrin , Chea Sim and many more working along side wiht Pol Pot between 1975-1979?
5. Why Khmer Viet Minh like Heng Samrin , Chea Sim became Khmer Rouge and then become Khmer CPP?
6. Who origionally formed CPP ?
7 . Late Ho Chi Minh and Indochina Federation are all involved in killing Cambodian and swollowing Cambodia as Laos and Kampuchea-Krom.
Wake up all Khmer don not fall into another trip and trap of Hanoi in this ECCC under the name of seeking justice for 1.7 million of khmer who bruttally killed between 1975-179.
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