Cambodia court hearing Khmer Rouge trials close to bankruptcy

Ieng Sary, the Khmer Rouge regime's deputy prime minister, on trial in the extraordinary chamber in the courts of Cambodia, in Phnom Penh. Photograph: Mark Peters/AFP/Getty Images

International prosecutor Andrew Cayley QC says urgent funds needed for hearings of alleged war criminals under Pol Pot

Maya Wolfe-Robinson

The Guardian, Tuesday 4 December 2012 12.49 EST

The trials of those allegedly responsible for the deaths of at least 1.7 million people under the brutal Khmer Rouge regime are on the brink of collapse unless European governments come to the rescue of the UN-backed tribunal in Cambodia, according to the chief international prosecutor.

The court is struggling to survive due to financial difficulties, forcing Andrew Cayley QC to tour Europe in an attempt to drum up funding. Cayley met with officials from the Foreign Office on Monday to try to guarantee the future of what he described as the most important case since Nuremberg and will address the European Union on Wednesday.

Under Pol Pot's bloody reign, from April 1975 – January 1979, a quarter of Cambodia's population were murdered or died from disease or starvation. Having waited more than 30 years to see an international court deliver judgment on the Khmer Rouge, around 150,000 Cambodians have attended trials at the Phnom Penh tribunal.

Chum Mey, a lead witness in the court's first trial and one of the few living survivors of the notorious Tuol Sleng prison, as many as 17,000 people were tortured and killed, said that only the court can help to "wash away" his suffering.

When the court finally opened its doors in 2009 for the trial of the regime's chief jailer, Kaing Guek Eav (also known as Duch), hundreds of people, including victims of the Khmer Rouge, queued up to hear evidence of mass executions and systematic torture of men, woman and children.

Duch admitted to overseeing the torture of prisoners before sending them for execution at the "killing fields". He was convicted of war crimes, crimes against humanity, torture and murder. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for his "shocking and heinous" crimes in February this year. The current case before the court focuses on the forced removal of Phnom Penh residents to the country, where large numbers were killed or died after being subjected to forced labour.

Now the war crimes tribunal only has enough funds to last until the end of February next year, due to financial pressures caused by the Japanese tsunami, the euro crisis and the recession. Reliant on voluntary donations, Japan has made up nearly 50% of international contributions since the court began operations in 2006, but has considerably reduced its donations as it seeks to recover from the 2011 natural disaster.

The UK, France, Germany, Australia and the US have traditionally been major donors but Cayley told the Guardian: "Due to the financial crisis, other states have found it very difficult to up their contributions so up until two weeks ago we were going to run out of money by the end of November".

He said: "We've now dodged the bullet on that and we have money for the first three months of next year but we have to get the other nine months for the rest of the budget that we don't have yet". The court's budget for 2013 is $43.9m (£27.2m). He described the difficulties of retaining good staff under such financial uncertainty, "especially in Cambodia where it is quite a challenging environment to work in".

Cayley was hopeful that a solution could be found after meeting with the human rights committee of the German parliament last week in an attempt to persuade them to increase their contributions. "Germany has been extremely supportive, I've asked them to liaise and co-operate with all of the donors to agree a stable financial plan ... we can't go from month to month, where suddenly we pay the electricity bill with one day to go before the electricity gets switched off – that's how it's working at the moment. You can't maintain the confidence of the staff if you can't guarantee that they will be paid".

The UN's special expert on the court, known officially as the extraordinary chamber in the courts of Cambodia (ECCC), ambassador David Scheffer, is also in Europe to engage in fundraising talks with several governments, including the FCO. Scheffer said: "I hope governments will view sustained support for the ECCC as an investment in the rule of law in Cambodia and in international justice globally.

"When the United Nations approves the creation of a criminal tribunal like the ECCC to address the most heinous atrocity crimes known to humankind, sustaining critical support for its relatively cheap administration of international justice should not be this difficult. I remain optimistic because I have found senior government officials sincerely interested in and committed to seeing this endeavour through to its end, and we at the United Nations as well as, if I may speak on their behalf, Cambodia's victim population are deeply grateful for their support."

The court cost $141.1m up to the end of 2011, with an estimated $45.m for the 2012 budget. It has been beset by problems, as allegations of political interference call the tribunal's credibility into question. Three judges have resigned and Cayley is the court's second international prosecutor. With just one conviction under its belt, the three defendants currently on the stand for the court's second trial - Ieng Sary, the Khmer Rouge's former foreign minister; Nuon Chea, the regime's chief ideologist and Pol Pot's right hand man, and Khieu Samphan, a former head of state - are frail men in their 80s. Ieng Thirith, Ieng Sary's wife and one of the Khmer Rouge's highest-ranking woman, was set free in September, having been declared mentally unfit for trial. She is thought to be suffering from Alzheimer's disease.

Controversy has surrounded attempts to get two further trials off the ground, as they were initially thrown out by the national judges seemingly without investigation, amid accusations of judicial misconduct and pressure from the Pnom Penh government. Cayley hopes that the court's mandate will be completed in the next three years, although current financial worries throw anything beyond the next few months into question.

The FCO said: "International justice is central to foreign policy. It is essential for securing the rights of individuals and states, and for securing peace and reconciliation. Our support for the extraordinary chamber in the courts of Cambodia is an important element in our strategy to reduce conflict and strengthen the rules based international system. We are fully supportive of the court's key role in delivering long-awaited justice for millions of Cambodians through the trials of the most senior and responsible surviving members of the Pol Pot regime. The scale of the crimes committed and the number of victims makes it one of the most significant tribunals of its kind since Nuremberg."