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 THREE: LEGAL FINDINGS

I. GRAVE BREACHES OF THE GENEVA CONVENTIONS 1949

A. "CHAPEAU"ELEMENTS

Nexus Between the International Armed Conflict and the Crimes

1479.       All of the crimes concerned were closely related to the hostilities between Democratic Kampuchea and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the existence of the armed conflict played a substantial role in the commission of the crimes by the perpetrators.⁵²⁷⁹

1480.       At the S-21 security centre all of the victims were either Vietnamese prisoners of war or Vietnamese civilians who had been captured by the RAK during armed hostilities undertaken for the purposes of the conflict. Those taken prisoner were transferred to S-21, typically from combat zones on or near the Vietnamese border, to be interrogated by S-21 personnel on military intelligence matters as well as (in the case of the civilians) their perceived status as Vietnamese spies, and also for the purposes of CPK war propaganda. Throughout the course of the conflict hundreds of Vietnamese POWs and civilians were brought to S-21 for interrogation and execution, with the greatest numbers arriving during the peaks in fighting between the two States in 1977 and 1978.

1481.       The Jarai victims at the Au Kanseng security centre were Vietnamese civilians who as a result of the fighting between the two States had been driven from Vietnamese territory into Democratic Kampuchea whereupon they were captured by RAK Division 801 forces, transferred to the Au Kanseng security centre and executed due to their perceived status as Vietnamese soldiers in the conflict between the two States.

1482.       During incursions into Vietnamese territory, RAK soldiers were given explicit orders that civilians be specifically targeted to be killed. These territorial incursions were made by the forces of Democratic Kampuchea for the purposes of pursuing military objectives in the armed conflict against Vietnam.