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

Awareness of the Perpetrator

1479.       The perpetrators of the crimes were aware at all times of both the existence of the international armed conflict⁵²⁸⁰ as well as the factual circumstances establishing the protected status of the victims.⁵²⁸¹

1480.       At the S-21 security centre the Vietnamese prisoners had generally been arrested in or near main conflict zones on the border with Vietnam, at which point they were transported to S-21 whereupon they would be interrogated on military intelligence matters related to the armed conflict and for the purpose of publicly disseminating propaganda in the campaign against Vietnam. Vietnamese prisoners would be categorised in the records at S-21 as either, "Vietnamese Soldiers", "Vietnamese Civilians" or as their perceived status as "Vietnamese Spies".

1481.       At the Au Kanseng security centre the victims were captured at the Vietnamese border by a combat Division of the RAK which was engaging in armed hostilities with the Vietnamese forces in the area. Furthermore, when the Jarai people were captured they declared themselves to the RAK forces as being both from Vietnam and civilians.

1482.       Finally, during RAK incursions into the territory of Vietnam, the perpetrators of attacks on civilians would have been fully aware that they were in this territory for the purposes of engaging in military operations against Vietnamese forces further to the international armed conflict and that the civilians killed would, as Vietnamese nationals, have been protected persons.