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) make 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

 

PART TWO:  APPLICABLE LAW

II. DEFINITI0N 0F CRIMES  

A. GEN0CIDE

1310.        Cambodia acquired sovereign autonomy to accede to the Genocide Convention upon joining the "French Union" in 1949.⁵¹⁶² The United Nations accepted Cambodia's accession and there is no record of any legal challenge with respect to this accession. The Genocide Convention received the twenty ratifications and accessions required for its entry into force in 1951.⁵¹⁶³ Thus, the crime of genocide was part of international law applicable in Cambodia at the relevant time.⁵¹⁶⁴

1311.       It should be noted that some versions of the definition of this crime in the relevant ECCC instruments could be interpreted as creating an open-ended list of constitutive acts of genocide.⁵¹⁶⁵ In order to avoid a breach of the nullum crimen sine lege principle, the Co- Investigating Judges will take into consideration Article 9 of the ECCC Agreement and Article 4 of the ECCC Law which provide that "the Extraordinary Chambers have jurisdiction to prosecute the suspects who have committed crimes of genocide, as defined in the 1948 Convention" and apply the international definition of genocide.⁵¹⁶⁶

1312.       In light of these considerations, genocide is defined as the specific intent⁵¹⁶⁷ to destroy,⁵¹⁶⁸ in whole or in part,⁵¹⁶⁹ a national⁵¹⁷⁰, ethnic,⁵¹⁷¹ racial⁵¹⁷² or religious group,⁵¹⁷³ as such,⁵¹⁷⁴ by means of any of the following acts: killing of members of the group;⁵¹⁷⁵ causing serious bodily⁵¹⁷⁶ or mental harm⁵¹⁷⁷ to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life⁵¹⁷⁸ calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;⁵¹⁷⁹ imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group⁵¹⁸⁰ or forcibly transferring children from one group to another group.⁵¹⁸¹