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 

XIII. CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY 

A.  "CHAPEAU" ELEMENTS 

Committed "as Part of the Attack"

1370.       The underlying acts of crimes against humanity set out hereinafter were committed "as part of" the attack in that they were in line with the violence and in that their characteristics, objectives, nature and consequences made them an integral part thereof, such that they were not just random acts. In the instant case, even where individual acts of direct perpetrators were not in themselves "widespread or systematic", the acts fell within the general purview of the attack, and the perpetrators had knowledge of the broader context of the attack, even if there were not aware of all its details.

1371.       As regards the mens rea, the evidence on the case file demonstrates that the widespread nature of the attack was known both to the Charged Persons and the direct perpetrators of the crime, in particular as a result of the regular issuance of directives to Party cadres and the personnel in charge of implementing the policy.⁵²⁶¹ As the requirement of "discriminatory grounds" in the "chapeau" of Article 5 of the ECCC Law implies no additional mens rea, it is not necessary to demonstrate that the act was committed with the intent to further the attack or ideology, policy or plan underpinning the attack.

1372.       Furthermore, the link with the attack is established for each of the crimes against humanity specified in this Closing Order, as well as the knowledge of this link by the direct perpetrators and the leaders, through, inter alia, channels of communication, attendance at meetings and public speeches.