Trial of Khmer Rouge leaders to start in November, court says

Oct 18, 2011
DPA

Phnom Penh - The long-awaited opening arguments in the trial of the surviving Khmer Rouge leaders are to start November 21, the UN-backed court said Tuesday.

The presentation of evidence would follow from November 28, the trial chamber said.

'This is the case that a lot of Cambodians have been waiting for,' tribunal spokesman Lars Olsen said. 'It is the case of those who are accused of being the leaders and of implementing the policies that allegedly led to the crimes for which they are being tried.'

The four elderly defendants denied charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes for their alleged roles in the deaths of up to 2.2 million people under the 1975-79 Khmer Rouge regime.

The four are Nuon Chea, who is known as Brother Number Two and was the deputy to the late Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot; head of state Khieu Samphan; foreign minister Ieng Sary; and his wife, social affairs minister Ieng Thirith.

The accused are aged 79 to 85 and suffer from various health problems.

Psychiatrists recently concluded an assessment of Ieng Thirith, who is believed to have Alzheimer's disease. A decision to determine her fitness to stand trial was expected in the coming weeks.

The court has long described the second case it is to hear as the most complex of its type since the Nazi trials at Nuremberg, Germany.

In September, the tribunal said it had separated the complex array of charges against the defendants, effectively dividing their trial into a series of smaller hearings.

The division allows the court to rule on individual charges as the trial proceeds rather than delivering a single verdict for each defendant after a number of years.

Also this week, the head of the UN's Office of Legal Affairs, Patricia O'Brien, is to arrive in Cambodia to meet with government officials, donors and tribunal staff amid unprecedented upheaval at the troubled court.

O'Brien's visit follows the October 9 resignation of an investigating judge, Siegfried Blunk.

Blunk, a German national, said he quit to avoid the perception of political interference after Cambodian government officials said Phnom Penh would not permit further prosecutions after the tribunal's second case.

On October 14, Martin Nesirky, a spokesman for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, said O'Brien would address the topic of political interference and other unspecified issues.

The Office of Legal Affairs has come under increasing pressure to mount an investigation into the Office of the Co-Investigating Judges.

In its first case, the court last year sentenced the regime's security chief, Comrade Duch, to 30 years in prison after finding him guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Duch has appealed his conviction.

The Khmer Rouge emptied Cambodia's cities as it advocated a rural, agrarian society. The tribunal said the movement was responsible for up to 2.2 million deaths from execution, overwork, starvation and disease.