War crimes court releases list of sites in fourth Khmer Rouge case

Aug 8, 2011
DPA

Phnom Penh - Judges at the UN-backed Khmer Rouge tribunal on Monday published a list of 30 crime sites at the centre of their investigations in the court's controversial fourth case.

Their action came after international prosecutor Andrew Cayley called on Friday for them to publish the list in good time to allow people affected by crimes at the sites to register with the court as victims.

The investigating judges - Germany's Siegfried Blunk and Cambodia's You Bunleng - said they were acting after 'an increasing amount of speculative and wrong information being published in the media.'

'So far (we) did not notify the public of the crime sites in Case 004, because, unlike in Case 002, there are serious doubts whether the suspects are 'most responsible',' the judges wrote.

That term refers to the court's mandate to prosecute only senior leaders of the Khmer Rouge and those considered most responsible for crimes committed between 1975 and 1979, the years Pol Pot's movement ruled Cambodia.

Case 002, against four elderly Khmer Rouge leaders, is expected to start later this year. All four deny charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Earlier this year Blunk and You Bunleng faced widespread criticism over their decision to close the investigation into the court's politically sensitive third case without interviewing the suspects or visiting alleged crime sites.

That decision, in a case against two former military officers each suspected of involvement in many thousands of deaths, saw several UN staff quit the investigating judges' office in apparent protest.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has repeatedly said he would not permit Case 003 or Case 004 to proceed at the hybrid court, which is meant to be independent.

Many observers believe the cases now stand little chance of going to trial regardless of their legal merits.

In its first case the court last year sentenced the regime's security chief, Comrade Duch, to 30 years in prison after finding him guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Duch has appealed the verdict.

The tribunal estimated that 1.7 million to 2.2 million people died in less than four years of rule by the Khmer Rouge, which emptied Cambodia's cities as it advocated a rural, agrarian society. It said 800,000 deaths were violent with the rest attributed to overwork, starvation and illness.