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.  DEFINITION OF CRIMES

B. CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY

1310.        Crimes against humanity were part of the international law applicable in Cambodia at the relevant time.⁵¹⁸²

1311.       The definition of crimes against humanity under customary international law is the commission of one or more of the following acts, as part of⁵¹⁸³ a widespread or systematic attack⁵¹⁸⁴ directed against a civilian population:⁵¹⁸⁵ murder;⁵¹⁸⁶ extermination;⁵¹⁸⁷ enslavement;⁵¹⁸⁸ deportation;⁵¹⁸⁹ imprisonment;⁵¹⁹⁰ torture;⁵¹⁹¹ rape;⁵¹⁹² persecution on political, racial or religious grounds;⁵¹⁹³ and other inhumane acts,⁵¹⁹⁴ including forced marriage,⁵¹⁹⁵ sexual violence,⁵¹⁹⁶ enforced disappearance⁵¹⁹⁷ and forced transfers of population.⁵¹⁹⁸

1312.       However, the threshold or "chapeau" elements defining the attack for the crime against humanity under Article 5 of the ECCC Law includes the phrase "national, political, ethnic, racial or religious grounds". Clearly, this aspect cannot be interpreted as adding a constitutive element to the customary definition of crimes against humanity;⁵¹⁹⁹ it only introduces a legal limitation to the jurisdiction of the ECCC.⁵²⁰⁰ Since the introduction of this additional condition results in a narrower definition of crimes against humanity (which is thereby able to be construed as more favorable to the Charged Persons), the Co-Investigating Judges will apply the narrower definition in interpreting Article 5 of the ECCC Law.