New US judge for Khmer Rouge cases

July 30, 2012
From: AAP

CAMBODIA'S war crimes court, backed by the United Nations, has appointed a US judge to investigate two new Khmer Rouge cases strongly opposed by the government, after two predecessors resigned in protest.

The Cambodian government has approved the UN decision to hire Mark Harmon, who was regarded in stark contrast to the previous judge who held the role but was never recognised by Phnom Penh, the court said in a statement on Monday,

Harmon is a former US federal prosecutor and also served in a senior capacity at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague for 17 years.

He will be the third foreign judge in less than a year to attempt to investigate two politically sensitive new cases linked to the brutal regime which ruled between 1975 and 1979, when up to two million people died.

"His deployment will enable the (court) to continue the critical task of pursuing accountability for the crimes committed during the period of the Khmer Rouge regime," the statement read.

The Cambodian government, which counts many ex-cadres among its ranks, is strongly opposed to pursuing more suspects beyond the current second trial of three ex-regime leaders, saying new prosecutions could destabilise the country.

German investigating judge Siegfried Blunk quit last October, citing government interference into the two new cases involving five mid-level Khmer Rouge members accused of mass killings and forced labour.

Swiss reserve judge Laurent Kasper-Ansermet was the UN's choice to replace him, but Phnom Penh refused to recognise the appointment, causing an unprecedented row between the UN and Cambodia.

Led by Pol Pot, who died in 1998, the hardline communist Khmer Rouge wiped out nearly a quarter of the population through starvation, overwork or execution in a bid to create an agrarian utopia.

The Khmer Rouge tribunal, which is perpetually cash-strapped, has so far completed just one case, sentencing a former prison chief to life in jail for overseeing the deaths of some 15,000 people.