Lawyer Glitch Postpones Nuon Chea Hearing [-Ky Tech's CBA shows its ugly head again]

By Heng Reaksmey, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
04 February 2008

Jailed Khmer Rouge leader Nuon Chea successfully argued for the delay of the first tribunal hearing against him Monday, convincing judges he did not have a foreign lawyer legally qualified to represent him.

“May I respect the ECCC,” Nuon Chea said, addressing the tribunal by its official acronym, for the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. “I am Nuon Chea, a defendant. My opinion is that, why is there a hearing today, when I only have one Cambodian co-lawyer, not in line with international standards? Therefore, I think that there is no justice. I need to have two lawyers, according to the law of this court. If there is only one Cambodian lawyer, and there is no foreign lawyer, [he] cannot defend me at this time. I ask the court to postpone.”

The judges agreed, along with other court jurists and outside observers.

Dutch lawyer Victor Koppe has not been admitted to the Cambodian bar, making him ineligible under tribunal regulations, which requires a defense team of at least one Cambodian and foreign lawyer.

Koppe violated the rules of the courts when he petitioned for the removal of a tribunal judge ahead of the hearing, without having been sworn in by the Cambodian Bar Association, the Associated Press reported.

Pre-trial co-prosecutor Chea Leang said the postponement decision was “very appropriate,” adding that the prosecutors “respect the rights of the accused, as stated in the law.”

No new hearing date was set, but pre-trial judge Prak Kimsan said he would expect communication from Nuon Chea’s primary foreign defense attorney, Michiel Pestman, who has not yet arrived in Cambodia.

“Please, guards, take the defendant to the detention center,” Prak Kimsan ordered after the decision.

Prior to the hearing, victims of the Khmer Rouge regime gathered outside the tribunal facilities, on the outskirts of Phnom Penh.

Um Pum, 77, from Kampong Speu province, said the delay would not change the ultimate outcome of Nuon Chea’s trial.

“Go ahead with the procedure,” said Um Pum, who lost 16 family members to the regime. “When he can find a lawyer, even 20 of them, he will still be sentenced. His lawyers cannot defend him.”

"Killing Fields" court adjourns bail hearing

Mon Feb 4, 2008

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Cambodia's U.N.-backed Khmer Rouge tribunal adjourned a bail hearing on Monday for "Brother Number Two" Nuon Chea after his Dutch lawyer failed to show up.

Making his first court appearance since being charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity, the white-haired and toothless 82-year-old Nuon Chea, who was Pol Pot's right hand man, spoke only to ask that his request for bail be delayed.

"Why are we having the hearing today since I have only one Cambodian lawyer and it is not consistent with international standards?" he asked the courtroom packed with nearly 500 people and reporters.

"If the hearing goes ahead, I don't believe it will be fair to me," he said.

An estimated 1.7 million people were executed or died of torture, disease or starvation under Pol Pot's 1975-79 reign of terror as his dream of creating an agrarian peasant utopia descended into the nightmare of the "Killing Fields".

Nuon Chea is accused of playing a central role in the atrocities and has been implicated directly in the mass slaughter of regime opponents by Duch, head of Phnom Penh's S-21, or Tuol Sleng, interrogation and torture centre.

Duch who is also accused of atrocities, is expected to be a key witness at the long-awaited $56 million tribunal.

The court did not set a new date to hear Nuon Chea's request that he be released on bail for lack of evidence. He is unlikely to be freed.

(Reporting by Ek Madra; Editing by Ed Cropley)

Top Khmer Rouge figure in court

Monday, 4 February 2008
BBC News

The most senior surviving member of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge regime has appeared in court for the first time.

Nuon Chea, who was second-in-command to Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, asked for a postponement to his appeal hearing because of a row over his legal team.

Noun Chea is one of five senior Khmer Rouge officials to be arrested and charged by a special genocide tribunal.

More than a million people are thought to have died during the four years of Khmer Rouge rule between 1975 and 1979.

Researchers say Nuon Chea was the ideological driving force behind the regime, responsible for its most radical policies.

Unabashed

Nuon Chea's appearance in court did not last long, but the survivors of the Khmer Rouge era have finally seen the man known as Brother Number Two in the dock.

With a full head of closely-cropped white hair, the octogenarian is a striking, if slightly stooped figure, according to the BBC's correspondent in Phnom Penh, Guy Delauney.

WHO WERE THE KHMER ROUGE?

• Maoist regime that ruled Cambodia from 1975-1979
• Founded and led by Pol Pot, who died in 1998
• Abolished religion, schools and currency in a bid to create agrarian utopia
• Brutal regime that did not tolerate dissent
• More than a million people thought to have died from starvation, overwork or execution

He briefly addressed the judges to request an adjournment, because his foreign legal counsel had not been registered as required with the Cambodian Bar Association.

After more than an hour of private discussions, the judges decided they agreed with him, and are due to decide the next step on Wednesday.

Late last year, Khmer Rouge prison chief Kaing Kek Ieu, also known as Duch, was extremely deferential when he spoke in court, but Nuon Chea was direct and unabashed in his request, our correspondent says.

"If I have only a Cambodian lawyer, it is not consistent with international standards. I believe that if these proceedings go ahead, it is not fair to me," he told tribunal judges as he put forward his case.

The delay is yet another setback for the already sluggish tribunal process.

Khmer Rouge founder Pol Pot died in 1998 and many fear that delays to the judicial process could mean that more of the regime's elderly leaders are never brought to justice.

KRouge's leader's detention hearing postponed

Monday February 4, 2008

PHNOM PENH (AFP) - Khmer Rouge leader Nuon Chea's first public hearing before Cambodia's genocide tribunal was postponed Monday amid a row over his legal team, court judges said.

A key member of Nuon Chea's defense, Dutch attorney Victor Koppe, has yet to be admitted to Cambodia's Bar Association, a requirement for foreign lawyers wishing to represent tribunal defendants.

Nuon Chea, the senior-most of the five Khmer Rouge cadre to be arrested so far, argued earlier in the day that going ahead without Koppe would violate international standards of justice.

"If I have only a Cambodian lawyer, it is not consistent with international standards. I believe that if these proceedings go ahead, it is not fair to me," the 81-year-old regime ideologue told tribunal judges.

Nuon Chea, who was Khmer Rouge supreme leader Pol Pot's closest deputy and the alleged architect of the regime's devastating execution policies during its 1975-1979 rule, was arrested in September and charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity.

"The pre-trial chamber decided to adjourn the hearing to a later date and ordered the lawyers of the charged person to submit a written report about the presence of the international lawyer," the judges said.

The conflict over Koppe arose last week when the Bar Association refused to admit him after he signed a court motion seeking the dismissal of one of the pre-trial chamber judges, Ney Thol.

In his motion, Koppe accused Ney Thol, who is president of Cambodia's military court, of being "neither independent nor impartial."

Bar officials said Koppe had signed the court documents before they swore him in, violating the rule that foreign lawyers wishing to represent tribunal defendants must be accepted by them before conducting court business.

No new date has been set for Nuon Chea's appeal against his pre-trial detention, the judges said, raising concerns over further delays to the already sluggish court.

Had the hearing been held, it would have marked only the second public hearing since the UN-backed tribunal was convened 18 months ago.

"The delay does not satisfy us," said Cambodian villager Huy Chhum, one of the hundreds of spectators who gathered in the tribunal's main courtroom to watch the hearing.

"So many delays will make villagers lose faith in the court and then it is meaningless," said the 75-year-old whose wife, brother and son perished under the regime.

Up to two million people died of starvation and overwork, or were executed by the Khmer Rouge, which dismantled modern Cambodian society in its effort to forge a radical agrarian utopia.

Cities were emptied, their populations exiled onto vast collective farms, while schools were closed, religion banned and the educated classes targeted for extermination.

All of the former Khmer Rouge leaders currently in custody are elderly and ill, and there are fears they could die before being put in the dock.

Cambodia's genocide tribunal was convened in 2006 after nearly a decade of fractious talks between the government and United Nations.

But it has been badly hampered by delays, amid infighting among foreign and Cambodian judges as well as attempts by the Cambodian Bar Association to assert its authority over foreign defense lawyers.

Former Khmer Rouge Leader Appears Before UN Genocide Tribunal

A Cambodian police officer, rear left, tries photograph of a symbolizing justice statue at the U.N.-back genocide tribunal during a hearing Monday, Feb. 4, 2008. A Cambodian court adjourned a hearing Monday over former Khmer Rouge leader Nuon Chea's appeal against his detention by Cambodia's U.N.-backed genocide tribunal tasked with seeking justice in the communist movement's atrocities in late 1970s. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP)--Former Khmer Rouge leader Nuon Chea made his first appearance Monday before Cambodia's U.N.-backed genocide tribunal, but the hearing was quickly adjourned after his defense lawyer asked for a delay.

Nuon Chea, the Khmer Rouge's former ideologist, has been detained since Sept. 19 on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his involvement in the group's brutal 1975-79 rule, which caused the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people.

His Cambodian lawyer asked the court to postpone the hearing so a foreign lawyer could join him in appealing for Nuon Chea to be released on bail, claiming the tribunal's investigating judges did not have sufficient grounds to detain him.

Prak Kimsan, head of the five-judge panel, gave the defense until Wednesday to explain how much time they needed.

"The panel has decided to adjourn the hearing," he told the court.

Nuon Chea, 81, is one of five former Khmer Rouge leaders expected to go on trial this year.

In a detention order last year, the judges charged him with involvement in crimes including "murder, torture, imprisonment, persecution, extermination, deportation, forcible transfer, enslavement and other inhumane acts."

The tribunal says detention is necessary to prevent him from pressuring witnesses, destroying evidence and escaping. They say Nuon Chea's own safety could also be at risk if he is released.

Nuon Chea has denied any guilt, saying he is not a "cruel" man. He has also called himself "a patriot and not a coward" trying to run away.

Son Arun, Nuon Chea's lawyer, said Sunday his client is asking for bail because he "feels an absence of freedom in his detention, where all he does is eat and sleep."

"It is not like when he used to live with his family," Son Arun said.

Last week, Cambodia's bar association refused to swear in Son Arun's Dutch partner, Victor Koppe, because he had breached its rules by petitioning the tribunal before taking its oath.

Nuon Chea is the second detained former Khmer Rouge leader to appear before judges in a courtroom.

In December, the pretrial chamber judges ruled against a similar appeal for release by Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, who headed the Khmer Rouge's notorious S-21 prison.

Thousands of the movement's perceived enemies were tortured at the prison - now a genocide museum - before being executed at "killing fields" outside the capital, Phnom Penh.

Duch, who has been charged with crimes against humanity, implicated Nuon Chea in the atrocities.