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 FOUR:  CHARACTER INFORMATION 

IV. IENG THIRITH

1570.       Ieng Thirith, maiden name Khieu Thirith, alias Phea⁵³⁸⁸, was born on 10 March 1932, in Phnom Penh⁵³⁸⁹. Her father, Khieu On (who was a judge in Battambang), and her mother, Ouk Ponn, had five children, four girls and a boy. Ieng Thirith was the youngest.⁵³⁹⁰ Ieng

Thirith was married to Ieng Sary in 1953 and together they have four children, three girls _{and a boy.}⁵³⁹¹

1571.       After having obtained her baccalaureat at the Lycee Sisowath de Phnom Penh (where Son Sen was then teaching, and where she met her future husband, Ieng Sary, who was educated at the same place), she received a scholarship to pursue her studies in Paris. She left for Paris in 1952 with her sister Khieu Ponnary (who married Saloth Sar, alias Pol Pot, in 1956). Ieng Sary had already arrived there in 1951, and they were married in Paris. She obtained a diploma in Literature and English at Sorbonne University.⁵³⁹²

1572.       Ieng Thirith returned to Cambodia in 1957, where she worked for some time as a Professor, initially in a private school and then at the Lycee Sisowath, before entirely devoting herself to her revolutionary activities from 1965 onwards.

1573.       Ieng Thirith has explained that, because of her involvement in the revolution and operating from the jungles of Cambodia, she did not see her children for 10 years. They were entrusted to their grandmother until the coup of 1970, at which time they followed her in her underground operations.⁵³⁹³

1574.       Ieng Thirith's political activities between 1975 and 1979 are set out in the section of the Closing Order regarding the Role of the Charged Person.

1575.       After the fall of the regime, Ieng Thirith was reaffirmed as the DK Minister of Social Affairs at a session of the People's Representative Assembly of Kampuchea held on 18 December 197 9⁵³⁹⁴ and continued in this role until at least May 1982.⁵³⁹⁵ By September 1982, she had been named Secretary General in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the CGDK⁵³⁹⁶ and retained this role until at least late August 19 8 5.⁵³⁹⁷ In this capacity, she attended a number of international conferences organized to promote the interests of the CPK,⁵³⁹⁸ including with the UN⁵³⁹⁹ and also met a number of foreign delegations⁵⁴⁰⁰ to discuss inter alia the formation of the CGKD.⁵⁴⁰¹ Ieng Thirith also met a number of foreign journalists. ⁵⁴⁰² At these conferences and in her interviews with journalists, she denounced the Vietnamese occupation and advocated the restoration of the CPK.⁵⁴⁰³

1576.       Ieng Thirith stayed with the Khmer Rouge until her husband, Ieng Sary, joined the Cambodian Government and received an amnesty and pardon from the King in 1996. Thereafter, they lived together with one of their daughters in Phnom Penh, until their arrest in November 2007.

1577.       During a psychiatric evaluation ordered by the Co-Investigating Judges, the experts interviewed Ieng Thirith at length. They concluded that there was an absence of any serious mental problem. [REDACTED].⁵⁴⁰⁴