Top Khmer Rouge leaders guilty of crimes against humanity
Jonathan Head: VIDEO There was a round of applause as the verdict was read
Two
top Khmer Rouge leaders have been jailed for life after being convicted
by Cambodia's UN-backed tribunal of crimes against humanity.
Nuon Chea served as leader Pol Pot's deputy and Khieu Samphan was the Maoist regime's head of state.
They are the first top-level leaders to be held accountable for its crimes.
Up to two million people are thought to have died under the
1975-79 Khmer Rouge regime - of starvation and overwork or executed as
enemies of the state.
Judge Nil Nonn said the men were guilty of "extermination
encompassing murder, political persecution, and other inhumane acts
comprising forced transfer, enforced disappearances and attacks against
human dignity''.
Lawyers for the pair said they would appeal against the
ruling. "It is unjust for my client. He did not know or commit many of
these crimes," Son Arun, a lawyer for Nuon Chea, told journalists.
They will remain in detention while this takes place.
'Anger remains'
The regime sought to create an agrarian society: cities were
emptied and their residents forced to work on rural co-operatives. Many
were worked to death while others starved as the economy imploded.
During four violent years, the Khmer Rouge also killed all
those it perceived as enemies - intellectuals, minorities, former
officials - and their families.
Khmer Rouge rule brought four years of starvation, torture and fear to Cambodians
It is believed that up to two million Cambodians died under Pol Pot's regime
Soum Rithy, who lost his father and three siblings, reacts to the verdict in Phnom Penh
Prosecutors argued that they formulated policy and were complicit in its brutal execution.
Over three years the court has heard from some of those who lost entire families to the regime.
"My anger remains in my heart,'' Suon Mom, 75, whose husband
and four children starved to death, told the Associated Press news
agency.
"I still remember the day I left Phnom Penh, walking along the road without having any food or water to drink."
Jonathan Head, BBC News, Phnom Penh
After three years of hearings, and a summary of charges that
ran for 90 minutes, the presiding judge delivered sentencing against the
two elderly defendants surprisingly briskly. Both men were guilty of
crimes against humanity, both were sentenced to life in prison.
Khieu Samphan, the urbane, international face of the Khmer
Rouge, was found not to have had authority over those carrying out the
worst atrocities documented by the tribunal. Nuon Chea was found guilty
on all charges. Both in the end received the same sentence, somewhat
academic given that both men are in their eighties, and in poor health.
They had insisted on their innocence, dismissing the
accusations against them as propaganda and lies. Their defence, though,
was dismissed by the tribunal as lacking credibility. Nuon Chea, unable
to stand for the sentence, showed little emotion, but Khieu Samphan
appeared visibly angry. They had told their families not to come and
hear the verdicts.
It was in many ways an anticlimactic end to the only official
accounting for the horrors of the Khmer Rouge years. The true value of
this unique "hybrid" tribunal, blending international and Cambodian
judicial authority, is still difficult to assess.
Both men denied the charges against them. In closing statements
last year, they expressed remorse but said they had neither ordered
deaths nor been aware of them.
In a statement shortly after the ruling, the court said both
men had participated in "a joint criminal enterprise to achieve the
common purpose of implementing a rapid socialist revolution... by
whatever means necessary".
The pair also face a separate genocide trial. The case against them was split to accelerate proceedings, because of their age.
Who were the Khmer Rouge?
- Maoist regime that ruled Cambodia from 1975-1979; Led by Saloth Sar, better known as Pol Pot
- Abolished religion, schools and currency in effort to create agrarian utopia
- Up to two million people thought to have died of starvation, overwork or by execution
- Defeated in Vietnamese invasion in 1979; Pol Pot fled and remained free until 1997 - he died a year later
Two other former Khmer Rouge ministers were to be tried with them.
Ieng Sary, the former foreign minister, died in March 2013.
His wife Ieng Thirith, who served as the regime's social affairs
minister, has been ruled unfit to stand trial.
Before this, former prison chief Duch was the only senior
Khmer Rouge figure held to account, but he was not part of the regime's
central leadership.
He was jailed in 2010 for running the Tuol Sleng prison,
where thousands of people defined as enemies of the regime were tortured
and killed.
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