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

 

B. GENOCIDE BY KILLING: VIETNAMESE

1343. As regards the actus reus, people who belonged to the Vietnamese group (an ethnic and national group, who may also have been considered as a racial group by the CPK) were systematically killed.

1344. 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 Vietnamese group. Vietnamese people were often identified through the use of pre-prepared statistical lists or registration of those people as Vietnamese, and the perpetrators often took steps to ensure that the victims were Vietnamese before they were killed.

1345. As regards the mens rea,⁵²⁴⁸ the perpetrators intended to destroy, in whole or in part, the Vietnamese group as such. Killings were committed in the context of statements commenting on the objective to physically destroy the group in its entirety. In particular, the perpetrators applied a practice as to how destroy the group through a theory that lineage was through matrilineal descent. The Vietnamese were systematically and methodically targeted and killed on account of their membership of the Vietnamese group, and non-Vietnamese were specifically and expressly excluded from the attacks.

1346. Senior leaders of the CPK shared this intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the Vietnamese group as such. A direct call to kill all Vietnamese civilians remaining in Cambodia was published in the Revolutionary Flag magazine, which was disseminated throughout the Party. This policy to destroy the Vietnamese group was taught to cadres, as reflected in cadre notebooks and witness evidence. Evidence of implementation of this policy and reports on mass killings of Vietnamese were communicated from the zones to the Centre, including to Nuon Chea and Ieng Sary.

1347.       The systematic nature, scale, pattern and repetition and timing of the killings of the Vietnamese clearly indicate that it was decided upon and coordinated by the CPK leaders within the framework of the common purpose. In particular, the fact that in addition to the East Zone the killings occurred across numerous other zones during the same temporal period indicate that they were not unauthorized, random crimes committed by local cadres, but were directed centrally by the Party.

1348.       Furthermore, the intention of the senior leaders of the CPK is inferred from the fact that the genocide of the Vietnamese occurred in the general context of escalating deportations, persecution, incitement of hatred and anti-Vietnamese war propaganda directed by the CPK Centre.

1349.       Although there is no numeric threshold of victims necessary to establish genocide, the evidence in the Case File shows that the portion of the Vietnamese population killed is strong evidence of the intent to destroy the group, in whole or in part: following the Demographic Expert Report almost all the Vietnamese people remaining in Cambodia during the CPK regime were killed.