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Four Khmer Rouge suspects face “questionable” genocide trail

(Photo: Flickr)

16 September 2010

By Lula Ahrens
Radio Netherlands Worldwide


Four former Khmer Rouge regime leaders will stand trial for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity at Cambodia's national, UN-backed war crimes court. The closing order was signed on Tuesday 15 September, allowing for the trial to begin in 2011. The Dutch lawyer of suspect Nuon Chea has serious doubts about the fairness of the trial. “I’m afraid it won’t meet international standards.”

The four are the most senior members of the hard-line communist movement still alive.

Former deputy to Khmer Rouge founder Pol Pot, Nuon Chea (84); foreign minister Ieng Sary (84), Sary’s wife and social affairs minister Iengh Thirith (78), and head of state Khieu Samphan (79) were indicted in December 2009. They have been in detention since their arrests in 2007.

Dutch lawyers
The Marxist Khmer Rouge regime wiped out nearly a quarter of the country's population between 1975 to 1979 in a bid to create an agrarian utopia. Up to two million people died from starvation, overwork or execution.

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