Ieng Sary Ieng, Thirith File Against Pre-Trial Detention

By Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
16 November 2007

Lawyers for for former Khmer Rouge leaders Ieng Sary and wife Thirith plan to file a petition against a tribunal decision to detain them ahead of atrocity crimes trials.

The courts said Wednesday they would not release the couple, arrested Monday and charged with crimes against humanity, for their roles as ministers under the regime.

The two could suffer increasing ill health if detained, the lawyers said.

"There is no benefit of detaining him," Ieng Sary attorney Ang Udom said.

Phat Pov Seang, lawyer for Ieng Thirith, said he was preparing the necessary documentation to appeal the detention.

Khmer Justice

November 14, 2007
Commentary
By YOUK CHHANG
Published by The Wall Street Journal

Phnom Penh, Cambodia

They live a privileged and comfortable life, while the majority of Cambodians still earn less then a dollar a day.

Cambodians often refer to the Democratic Kampuchea regime, which was responsible for the deaths of nearly a quarter of the population between 1975 and 1979, as the "Pol Pot-Ieng Sary clique." Although few people knew the identities of the secretive leaders of Democratic Kampuchea until after the regime fell, they knew about Ieng Sary by the mid-1970s. By placing his name next to Pol Pot's (the two were brothers-in-law), Cambodians clearly recognize him as one of the masterminds of the genocide. Monday's arrest of Ieng Sary and his wife, Ieng Thirith, is a victory for all those who suffered through the cruelty of their rule.

Ieng Sary became an ardent communist while he and Pol Pot were studying in Paris in the 1950s. Later, in Democratic Kampuchea, he served as both deputy prime minister and foreign minister. After escaping to the gem- and timber-rich Khmer Rouge zone of Pailin near the Thai border in 1979, he continued to hold senior positions in the Khmer Rouge until 1982, even though he had been given an in-absentia death sentence in 1979 by the Vietnamese-backed government. In 1996, he was pardoned by King Sihanouk at the request of then co-prime ministers Hun Sen and Prince Ranarridh, in exchange for his defection to the government in the name of peace and reconciliation.

His wife Ieng Thirith was one of the few women who held power during the regime. Minister of social affairs during Democratic Kampuchea and head of the regime's Red Cross Society, this strong woman came from a well-to-do family and met Ieng Sary while she was studying Shakespeare at the Sorbonne. Ieng Thirith has denied that she was a member of the Central Committee, saying she only wanted to serve her country and people, and never wanted any "high position." She also claimed that without the sacrifices of those who joined the revolution, Cambodia would have been erased from the world map.

Like perpetrators everywhere, both have denied any wrongdoing and are seemingly without remorse. In 1999, Ieng Thirith wrote to a Phnom Penh newspaper, praising those who left their comfortable villas and took up residence in Cambodia's jungles during the early 1970s to defend their motherland. She has never wavered from the ideals of a Maoist-inspired revolution in which peasants would rule.

But the couple, who are now in their mid-70s, have not chosen to live according to their ideals. Instead of adopting the modest circumstances of the people they claim to revere, they have a lavish villa in downtown Phnom Penh and regularly fly to Bangkok for medical treatment. They are also active Buddhists and have built a stupa at their local pagoda. They seem to forget that the Communist Party of Kampuchea had eliminated Buddhism, considering it, like all other religions, to be "reactionary."

Cambodians are quick to grasp the irony. This husband and wife, who were among the chief architects of Cambodia's killing fields, serve the revolution in name only. They live a privileged and comfortable life, while the majority of Cambodians still earn less then a dollar a day. The poor, in whose name the revolution was formed, are perhaps even poorer because of them and they are still powerless today. The Khmer Rouge left us with a terrible legacy in 1979 -- a country whose education system, religion, banks, commerce, communications and agriculture had all been destroyed. About three-quarters of the survivors were widows who were left to pick up the pieces and move on.

Ieng Sary, Ieng Thirith, Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan and others turned all Cambodians (except themselves, of course) into peasants during Democratic Kampuchea. The entire population was forced into the fields to grow rice and build irrigation systems, yet a huge percentage of them starved to death or died of overwork and untreated diseases. Ieng Thirith visited the irrigation projects many times during Democratic Kampuchea and doubtless saw the results of the regime's policies. The revolution may have failed, but its effects are still very much with us today.

The arrests of Ieng Sary and Ieng Thirith will at last give ordinary Cambodians a victory. This couple, who have changed little and still fail to understand the pain their victims endured, will finally be called into account and perhaps soon see justice done in a court of law. The arrests of the most politically untouchable of the Khmer Rouge leaders is a powerful message to the people of Cambodia and gives us hope that our country will move toward a better future.

Mr. Chhang is the director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, an independent nongovernmental organization that holds the world's largest collection of documents from Democratic Kampuchea.

Political Cartoon: Fishes in the Bowl

Cartoon by Sacrava (on the web at http://sacrava.blogspot.com)

Pssttt ... got any spare change for "poor" comrades Ieng Sary and Ieng Thirith?

Ieng Sary's "dilapidated" villa and "shabby" luxury car clearly show how destitute he is. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

2007-11-13
Former Khmer Rouge foreign minister seeks financial aid for legal defense

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) - Ieng Sary, who served as foreign minister in Cambodia's brutal Khmer Rouge regime, claimed he and his wife need financial aid to defend themselves before the U.N.-supported genocide tribunal, according to a statement issued Tuesday.

The demand by Ieng Sary and Ieng Thirith, revealed in court documents released Tuesday, was disparaged by fellow Cambodians, who said they lived a relatively lavish life in the capital, Phnom Penh.

The couple, both top leaders in the 1975-79 Khmer Rouge regime, were charged with crimes against humanity following their arrest Monday, the tribunal said. Ieng Sary was also charged with war crimes.

Ieng Sary and his wife said they do not have the means to pay for their legal fees, the tribunal's defense support section said in a statement Tuesday, adding that the couple were in the process of assembling their defense team.

Rupert Skilbeck, the head of the section, said the U.N. will pay the legal fees for all defendants until the end of this year. It is currently assessing the defendants' financial situations to decide whether or not to continue helping them financially.

Ieng Sary and Ieng Thirith were members of the inner circle of the Khmer Rouge. They were French-educated like the group's late charismatic leader Pol Pot, whose extremist policies turned the country into a virtual charnel house. The connection was linked by marriage: Ieng Thirith's sister Khieu Ponnary was Pol Pot's first wife.

Their arrests have brought to four the number of Khmer Rouge suspects detained for trials by the tribunal.

«It's a big step because they are big fish,» said Kek Galabru, president of the Cambodian human rights group Licadho.

«It is a reunion of former comrades, who together led the country to Year Zero and had all people they distrusted labeled as enemies and killed _ a mistake history cannot forgive,» said an editorial in the newspaper Koh Santepheap -- Island of Peace.

«Year Zero» refers to 1975, when the Khmer Rouge seized control with a radical vision of demolishing the nation and rebuilding it from scratch. The regime was blamed for the deaths of some 1.7 million people from starvation, disease, overwork and execution. None of the group's leaders has yet faced trial.

Ieng Sary and Ieng Thirith defected to the government in 1996 and have been living in relative comfort since then. A tribunal document released this week said he is 82 years old, and she is 75.

People familiar with the lifestyle of Ieng Sary and his wife say they are financially well-off. They pointed to the villa the couple own in Phnom Penh, their Toyota Land Cruiser and their ability to regularly travel by plane for medical treatment in neighboring Thailand.

That they are able to live comfortably in terms of their spending, travel and property makes their claims of destitution «laughable» and «ludicrous,» said Theary Seng, director of the Cambodian nonprofit group Center for Social Development.

«Why don't they sell their villa» to finance their legal fees, Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, wondered out loud. His group researches Khmer Rouge atrocities.

The arrests came almost three decades after the Khmer Rouge fell from power, with many fearing the aging suspects might die before they ever see a courtroom. Trials are expected to begin next year.

The U.N.-assisted tribunal was created last year after seven years of contentious negotiations between the United Nations and Cambodia.

Ieng Sary, «promoted, instigated, facilitated, encouraged and/or condoned the perpetration of the crimes» when the Khmer Rouge held power, according to a July 18 document presented by the tribunal's prosecutors to its investigating judges.

The document said there was evidence of Ieng Sary's participation in crimes which included planning, directing and coordinating Khmer Rouge «policies of forcible transfer, forced labor and unlawful killings.

The alleged crimes of his wife, Ieng Thirith, include her participation in «planning, direction, coordination and ordering of widespread purges ... and unlawful killing or murder of staff members from within the Ministry of Social Affairs,» the prosecutors said.

Nuon Chea, the former Khmer Rouge ideologist, and Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, who headed the Khmer Rouge S-21 torture center, were detained earlier this year on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Khmer Rouge Trial Underway

Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Reuters

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- Cambodia's "Killing Fields" court charged former Khmer Rouge Foreign Minister Ieng Sary and his wife on Monday with crimes against humanity, the latest members of Pol Pot's inner circle to face justice.

The octogenarian Ieng Sary, who became the international face of the Beijing-backed Maoist revolution after it was overthrown by a 1979 Vietnamese invasion, also stands accused of war crimes, a court spokesman said.

Ieng Sary and Khieu Thirith -- sister of Pol Pot's first wife, Khieu Ponnary -- were arrested soon after dawn by rifle-toting police, who sealed off the Phnom Penh villa where they have lived since cutting a deal and surrendering in 1996.

They were then whisked away in a police convoy to the court compound on the western outskirts of the capital to face the Cambodian and international judges probing their alleged role in one of the 20th century's darkest chapters.

An estimated 1.7 million people were executed or died of torture, disease or starvation under the Khmer Rouge's reign of terror from 1975 to 1979.

Ieng Sary has denied having anything to do with the mass killings but spent much of the 1980s defending Pol Pot at the United Nations while remnants of his black-shirted guerrilla army continued to fight from the jungle.

He is the third senior cadre to be arrested since the $56 million UN-backed tribunal got off the ground in earnest this year after almost a decade of delays.

Key Khmer Rouge leader arrested

Khmer Rouge chief arrested

Click on the picture above to view the BBC News video on Youtube

Two More Khmer Rouge Leaders Arrested, Charged for Atrocity Crimes

A military convoy takes former Khmer Rouge foreign minister Ieng Sary, and his wife Ieng Thirith, from their home in the Tonle Basak district to the Khmer Rouge tribunal headquarters on the outskirts of Phnom Penh November 12, 2007. A foreign official outside Ieng Sary's Phnom Penh villa said he would be arrested, although a court spokesman declined to confirm it. REUTERS /Chor Sokunthea

By Mean Veasna, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
12 November 2007

Two of Cambodia's top Khmer Rouge leaders, Ieng Sary and wife Ieng Thirith, were arrested early Monday morning in Phnom Penh and formally charged with atrocity crimes.

The Khmer Rouge tribunal charged Ieng Sary, 78, with war crimes and crimes against humanity and Ieng Thirith, 75, with crimes against humanity.

Ieng Sary, a French-educated communist and anti-colonialist, was one of the most public of Khmer Rouge figures, acting as the foreign minister and meeting foreign dignitaries.

Ieng Thirith, a student of English literature, was the minister of social affairs under the regime.

There are now a total of four former leaders in tribunal detention awaiting trial, including chief ideologue Nuon Chea and Tuol Sleng prison chief Kaing Khek Iev, aliased Duch.

Still free is Khieu Samphan, the nominal head of the regime, who is widely expected to be arrested and charged.

About 100 armed Interior Ministry and tribunal police surrounded the Ieng's Phnom Penh villa early Monday morning, and the two were taken in a smoke-glassed SUV to the tribunal court building on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, where they were charged and are being held. Ieng Sary's Cambodian attorney, Ang Udom, said the courts will decide by Wednesday whether the former leader will be released ahead of their trials.

Ieng Sary was born into a Khmer Kampuchea Krom family in today's southern Vietnam, and studied at a French school in Phnom Penh, where he met Saloth Sar, the man who would become Pol Pot. The two studied in France, where they were members of the French Communist Party. In 1953, Ieng Sary married Khieu Thirith, sister of the first wife of Pol Pot, in Paris.

Ieng Thirith was in charge of a revolutionary radio station in Hanoi while the Khmer Rouge vied for power. When the regime took over Cambodia, she was put in control of schools and clinics.

Following Arrests, Praise in Phnom Penh, Quiet on the Former Front

By VOA Khmer Stringers
Original reports from Phnom Penh
12 November 2007

"We are wondering, if Ieng Sary received amnesty from the former king, and it was he who brought peace in 1996, why was he brought to the [tribunal]?" - Mei Meak, former Khmer Rouge cadre

Rights activists and other Khmer Rouge tribunal experts said Monday the arrests of Ieng Sary and Ieng Thirith were strong indications the tribunal courts would see proceedings through to the end, but they warned the real test will come when actual trials begin.

Former Khmer Rouge in Anlong Veng and Pailin, meanwhile, said the arrest of a man who defected to the government and received royal pardon was unfair, but the former strongholds were quiet.

Document Center of Cambodia Director Youk Chhang called the arrest of "a man of power" thought untouchable by the general public "an important event."

"The Khmer Rouge trial procedure is going forward, with justice and impartiality," said Yoshimatsy Kaori, third secretary to the Embassy of Japan, which contributes the most money to the tribunal. "We welcome all of those who have made the Khmer Rouge tribunal go forward."

Center for Social Development Director Seng Theary said the arrests provided some "renewed hope that the Khmer Rouge tribunal is stepping forward."

However, some experts warned that trials need to start soon if the courts are to be successful.

"The Khmer Rouge tribunal should make it faster, because Cambodians have been waiting for justice for 30 years," said Long Panhavuth, project officer for the independent Open Society Initiative. "But when do we expect the 5th person to be arrested?"

Anlong Veng's deputy mayor and former Tuol Sleng prison photographer, Nhem En, said news of the arrest had not had an effect on the people of the area.

"This is the duty of the national and international court in order to understand the victim issues and [Ieng Sary's] leadership. I have no reaction. I welcome it," he said. "Our people have no reaction to the hundreds of armed police surrounding Ieng Sary's house" and arresting him.

Tuol Sleng survivor Van Nath, 61, said the time he had been waiting for had arrived. "I am increasingly hoping the court is getting near," he said. Former Khmer Rouge cadre Mei Meak, who once acted as a secretary to Pol Pot, said the arrest was of no surprise.

"We are wondering," he said, "if Ieng Sary received amnesty from the former king, and it was he who brought peace in 1996, why was he brought to the [tribunal]?"

US: Ieng Arrests Another Positive for Courts

By Sok Khemara, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
12 November 2007

US officials in Cambodia welcomed the arrest of Ieng Sary and Ieng Thirith Monday, calling it a move in the right direction for the tribunal.

The arrests will not affect the so-far absent US funding for the tribunal.

The tribunal must still prove itself up to international standards before the US would support it through funding, US Embassy spokesman Jeff Daigle said.

"We are evaluating that right now," he said.

The $56 million tribunal is supported mostly by the UN. But the government and other observers say the special courts will run out of money before they are able to go through full proceedings.

Foreign Minister Hor Namhong said last month proceedings could last through 2010, well beyond the current tribunal budget.

Political Cartoon: Two Courts

Cartoon by Sacrava (on the web at http://sacrava.blogspot.com)

Khmer Rouge couple arrested by genocide court

Ieng Sary and his wife Ieng Thirith in 2003 at the funeral of the widow of Pol Pot who was sister to Ieng Thirith (Khem Sovanarra/AFP/Getty Images)

November 12, 2007
Jenny Booth
Times Online (UK)

A frail elderly couple who were once among the most feared ministers of the murderous dictator Pol Pot were arrested today in Cambodia.

Ieng Sary and his wife Ieng Thirith, who were Pol Pot's brother-in-law and sister-in-law, were taken into custody at dawn in a raid by armed police on their villa in Phnom Penh.

The couple were transported in a police convoy to Cambodia's UN-backed genocide court in the city's western suburbs, where they were due to appear later today charged with crimes against humanity, and in Ieng Sary's case with war crimes.

The arrests brings the number of Pol Pot's inner circle now in custody in Cambodia to four, after the dictator's deputy, Nuon Chea, and Duch, who ran the infamous Tuol Seng torture centre, were arrested earlier this year.

The trials are expected in 2008, although tension and decade-long delays in setting up the so-called "Killing Fields" court have led some to fear that the elderly defendants could die before being brought to justice.

The Khmer Rouge caused the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million of its fellow countrymen and women during its four year reign of terror from 1975-1979. The true death toll will never be known.

With the backing of China, Pol Pot and his ministers abolished religion, schools and money in the hopes of creating a Communist rural utopia. Anyone suspected of failing to support the regime was exiled to vast farms, where many died of starvation and overwork.

The worst violence was reserved for those deemed to be intellectuals, who were were purged and slaughtered wholesale.

As Pol Pot's foreign minister and deputy prime minister, Ieng Sary was the public face of the secretive Khmer Rouge regime.

He has been accused of involvement in the killings, persuading hundreds of educated Cambodians, who had fled the Marxist revolution, to return to their country - only to be tortured and executed. Some of those who died were diplomats in his own ministry.

"Ieng Sary appears to have contributed to the perpetuation of atrocities... by encouraging the Party's execution policies," write Stephen Heder and Brian Tittemore in one of the definitive studies of the era.

Ieng Thirith, his wife, was the regime's social affairs minister and has been accused of helping to plan its policy of mass killings.

Both continued to defend the regime to the wider world for years after it was overthrown and became a guerilla movement in 1979. Ieng Sary was tried in his absence the same year and found guilty of genocide.

The couple have lived in retirement since surrendering and making a deal with the authorities in 1996. Their defection hastened the collapse of the Khmer Rouge. Pol Pot himself died in 1998 in one of his remote strongholds.

As part of their deal Ieng Sary was granted a royal pardon, but legal experts say that it is however still possible for him to face other charges.

Court investigators are said to be hunting a fifth suspect, believed to be Khieu Samphan, 76, who served as head of state.

Khmer Rouge leader arrested

Police surrounded Ieng Sary's home from early on Monday morning [AFP]

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2007
Al Jazeera

Police in Cambodia have arrested Ieng Sary, the former foreign minister and public face of the Khmer Rouge, along with his wife, the former social affairs minister of the Khmer Rouge government.

The couple are the third and fourth members of the Khmer Rouge regime to be taken into custody.

Reach Sambath, a spokesman for Cambodia's UN-backed genocide tribunal, said Ieng Sary and his wife, Ieng Thirith, had been brought to court on Monday according to a warrant issued by the tribunal.

Police had earlier cordoned off the street outside Ieng Sary's home in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, at about 5:30am.

Together with tribunal officials they spent about three hours inside the house before taking him away.

Ieng Sary's arrest had been widely anticipated as one of five unnamed suspects earlier listed by tribunal prosecutors.

'Gentle person'

Two of them, Nuon Chea, the former Khmer Rouge ideologist, and Kaing Khek Lev, better known as Duch, the former head of the notorious S-21 or Tuol Sleng prison, have already been taken into custody.

An estimated two million Cambodians died of hunger, disease, overwork and execution during the Khmer Rouge's rule between 1975 and 1979.

Like other surviving Khmer Rouge leaders, the 77-year-old Ieng Sary who served as deputy prime minister as well as foreign minister, has repeatedly denied responsibility for any crimes.

In Bangkok, Thailand, for a medical check-up in October, Ieng Sary told The Associated Press: "I have done nothing wrong. I am a gentle person.

"I believe in good deeds. I even made good deeds to save several people's lives. But let them [the tribunal] find what the truth is."

Ieng Sary has repeatedly denied committing any crimes [AP]

According to a July 18 filing by the prosecutors to the tribunal's judges, Ieng Sary, "promoted, instigated, facilitated, encouraged and/or condoned the perpetration of the crimes" when the Khmer Rouge held power.

It said there was evidence of Ieng Sary's participation in planning, directing and co-ordinating the Khmer Rouge "policies of forcible transfer, forced labour and unlawful killings".

His 75-year-old wife participated in "planning, direction, co-ordination and ordering of widespread purges ... and unlawful killing or murder of staff members from within the ministry of social affairs", the prosecutors' filing said.

Critics of the UN tribunal say the process has been left too late and suspects may die before ever being brought before a court.

Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge, died in 1998, while his military chief, Ta Mok, died in 2006.