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 THREE:  LEGAL FINDINGS 

XII. GENOCIDE

1335.       In light of the facts set out in the sections of this Closing Order regarding the "Treatment of the Cham" and the "Treatment of Vietnamese", the constitutive elements of the crime of genocide (through acts of killing, committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group as such) have been established. ⁵²⁴⁶

A. GENOCIDE BY KILLING: CHAM

1336.       As regards the actus reus [acts committed], people who belonged to the Cham group (an ethnic and religious group that distinguishes itself as such, and is identified as such by others) were systematically killed.

1337.       The principal method of this killing as an act of genocide was the deliberate and systematic identifying, targeting, gathering and killing of people due to their membership of the Cham group. A common technique was to arrest or gather all of the Cham people from a particular region and take them to be killed in groups at an execution site. The victims were targeted because of their membership of the Cham group; they were generally not detained for any length of time or made to provide confessions, instead they were killed immediately, often after being asked to confirm that they were Cham.

1338.       As regards the mens rea [state of mind, intention],⁵²⁴⁷ the perpetrators intended to destroy, in whole or in part, the Cham group as such. Killings were committed in the context of statements commenting on the objective to physically destroy the group in its entirety; the Cham were systematically and methodically targeted and killed on account of their membership of the Cham group, and other non-Cham people were specifically and expressly excluded from the attacks.

1339.        Senior leaders of the CPK shared this intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the Cham group as such. The plan to destroy the Cham as a group was a plan set out by the Party, with the order being given to district level leaders to identify and target the group and kill them en masse.

1340.       The systematic nature, scale, pattern and repetition and timing of the killings of the Cham group in the East and Central (Old North) Zones clearly indicate that it was decided upon and coordinated by the CPK leaders within the framework of the common purpose. The fact that, in addition to the East Zone and the Central (Old North) Zone, the killings occurred across numerous zones during the same temporal period indicate that they were not unauthorized, random crimes committed by local cadres, but were centrally directed by the Party.

1341. Additionally, the intention of the senior leaders of the CPK is inferred from the fact that the genocide of the Cham occurred in the general context of an escalating persecutory attack against the Cham directed by the CPK Centre. The CPK Centre directed a country-wide suppression of Cham culture, traditions and language, and forcibly moved Cham communities in an effort to break them up.

1342. Although there is no numeric threshold of victims necessary to establish genocide, the evidence from the Case File shows that the portion of the Cham population killed during the acts of destruction targeting the Cham group is strong evidence of the intent to destroy the group, in whole or in part: following the Demographic Expert Report, 36% of the Cham people in Cambodia died during the regime, which is compared to the average rate of Khmer deaths being an estimated 18.7%.