Closing Order of Case 002 against Senior KR Leaders Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary, Ieng Thirith

In light of the HISTORIC (!) start of MOST COMPLEX (sic!) trial hearings beginning on   27 June 2011 and again ANOTHER HISTORIC (!) START of this same MOST COMPLEX (sic!) on 21 Nov. 2011 of Case 002 against the surviving Khmer Rouge senior leaders Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary and Ieng Thirith, KI Media is posting installations of the public document of the Closing Order of Case 002 (or, Indictment). The Closing Order of the Co-Investigating Judges forms the basic document from which all the parties (co-prosecutors, lead co-lawyers for all civil parties, defense lawyers) will be making their arguments before the Trial Chamber judges (one Cambodian President, 2 Cambodian Judges, 2 UN judges). Up until now, the hearings involving these four surviving senior Khmer Rouge leaders have been in the Pre-Trial Chamber over issues of pre-trial detention and jurisdictional issues. Beginning in June November 2011, the Trial Chamber is hearing the substantive (sic!) arguments over the criminal charges   (genocide against Buddhists, genocide against Vietnamese, genocide against Cham Muslims, crimes against humanity at the 200 prisons, mass crimes in countless killing fields, Eastern Zone purges, penal code of 1956, etc.) of only the Phase I Movement in April 1975.
 Available in Khmer, English and French. Contact the ECCC for a free copy.  

 

CLOSING ORDER (or, INDICTMENT)

 

of Co-Investigating Judges You Bunleng and Marcel Lemonde

15 September 2010

 

IX. ROLES OF THE CHARGED PERSONS

 

D.  IENG THIRITH⁸⁷⁷

Background

1201. During the CPK regime Ieng Thirith used or was known under the revolutionary alias

"Phea".⁴⁸⁷⁴

1202. Ieng Thirith explained that she was initiated into politics by her fellow classmate and future husband Ieng Sary, when she was 14 years old and she became involved in what she calls a "revolutionary movement ...for the liberation of Kampuchea from the French colonialism" while she was at Lycee Sisowath. The movement was lead by Ieng Sary.⁴⁸⁷⁵

1203. Later, upon arrival in Paris, where she was a student from 1952 until 1957,⁴⁸¹⁶ she joined the Marxist Leninist Circle with her sister Khieu Ponnary, Pol Pot, Ieng Sary and Khieu Samphan among others.⁴⁸⁷⁷

1204. In 1960, after she returned to Cambodia, Ieng Thirith was active in the Communist movement, when it underwent a reorganization in which Pol Pot, Ieng Sary and other former Marxist-Leninist Circle members played key roles. She remained in Phnom Penh when Pol Pot and Ieng Sary fled to base areas along the Vietnam-Cambodia border in 1963, then followed them there in 1965, and remained with them through 1970.⁴⁸¹⁸

1205.       From 1970 to 1975, she was in charge of the radio station of the FUNK called "La Voix du Front Uni National du Kampuchea" in Hanoi.⁴⁸⁷⁹ At that time, she was involved in the diplomatic representation of the FUNK and GRUNK.⁴⁸⁸⁰ In March 1974, she held a meeting in Hanoi as FUNK and GRUNK Special Envoy with Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary and other top level members of the GRUNK.⁴⁸⁸¹ In April 1974 she went to Beijing⁴⁸⁸² and North Korea⁴⁸⁸³ as part of a FUNK and GRUNK delegation. She is referred to as "Minister of Popular Education and Youth" in the GRUNK government as early as November 1974,⁴⁸⁸⁴ although the administrative authority she exercised in this capacity is unclear.

1206.       It is not clear when and from where Ieng Thirith returned to Phnom Penh. A witness states that she returned to Cambodia from Beijing with her husband one week after 17 April 1975.⁴⁸⁸⁵ In 1980, Ieng Thirith said that she returned on June 1975 or later from Ratanakiri,⁴⁸⁸⁶ while in 2009 she said that Pol Pot asked her to return through China in 1975.⁴⁸⁸¹ On 14 August 1975, Ieng Thirith went on an official visit to China in her capacity as Minister of Education, with Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary, Sarin Chhak and [REDACTED].⁴⁸⁸⁸ She was in Cambodia by at least September 1975.⁴⁸⁸⁹