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Khmer Rouge leaders guilty of crimes against humanity and jailed for life Khmer Rouge leaders guilty of crimes against humanity and jailed for life
(about 7 hours later)
The former Khmer Rouge senior figures Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan have been found guilty of crimes against humanity and given life imprisonment by a court in Cambodia. A UN-backed war crimes tribunal has found the Khmer Rouge’s Brother No 2 Nuon Chea and former head of state Khieu Samphan guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced the two elderly men to life imprisonment, in a move heralded by human rights groups as a “historic victory” for the nation.
Khieu Samphan, the 83-year-old who was the regime’s head of state, and Nuon Chea, its chief ideologue, now aged 88, still face a genocide trial for their role in the 1970s terror. Both men, in ill health, have denied wrongdoing. The verdict comes nearly 40 years after the regime led by Pol Pot ended its murderous four-year reign over Cambodia, during which time nearly 2 million people – a quarter of the population – were died from starvation, exhaustion, execution or lack of medical care as a result of the communist “utopia” experiment.
The case, covering the forced exodus of millions of people from Cambodia’s towns and cities and a mass killing, is just part of the Cambodian story. Nearly a quarter of the population died under the Khmer Rouge through a combination starvation, medical neglect, overwork and execution when the group held power in 1975-79. Khieu Samphan, 83, known as “Mr Clean” for his reported incorruptibility, and Nuon Chea, 88, the Khmer Rouge’s chief ideologue, were both charged with crimes against humanity, homicide, torture, genocide and religious persecution during a regime that forced Cambodia into “a state of terror”, according to the tribunal’s chief judge Nil Nonn.
Many have criticised the slow justice and the cost. The tribunal, formally known as the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia and comprising of Cambodian and international jurists, began operations in 2006. It has since spent more than US$200m yet it has only convicted one defendant, prison director Kaing Guek Eav, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2011. The defendants, both of whom have been in hospital at times since the trial began in November 2011, were described by prosecutor William Smith as “dictators who controlled Cambodians by brutal force and fear”.
The current trial began in November 2011 and started out with four Khmer Rouge leaders. Former foreign minister Ieng Sary died in 2013, while his wife, social affairs minister Ieng Thirith, was deemed unfit to stand trial due to dementia in 2012. The group’s top leader, Pol Pot, died in 1998. “They brutalised and dehumanised their own people and kept spilling blood for power,” he added.
Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea were both charged with crimes against humanity, genocide, religious persecution, homicide and torture. Both men are in frail health and have required occasional hospitalisation during the trial. Lawyers for the two said they would appeal.
Khieu Samphan has acknowledged that mass killings took place. But testifying before the court in 2011, he claimed he was just a figurehead who had no real authority. He denied ordering any executions himself, calling the allegations a “fairy tale”. Instead he blamed Pol Pot’s extreme policies. Both men denied the allegations against them, although Khieu Samphan did admit that mass killings took place – blaming Pol Pot’s extreme brand of communism. In closing statements last year to the court, formally known as the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, he described himself as a state figurehead who “did not have any power” and did not order any executions, calling the allegations a “fairytale”.
He also said that the communism Khmer Rouge cadres took to the extreme – virtually enslaving the entire population in a bid to create an agrarian utopia – had given him hope when he was young, and the movement had opposed a pro-western regime and neighbouring Vietnam, Cambodia’s traditional enemy. “It is easy to say that I should have known everything, I should have understood everything, and thus I could have intervened or rectified the situation at the time,” he said. “Do you really think that that was what I wanted to happen to my people?”
Nuon Chea, who is known as Brother No 2 for being Pol Pot’s trusted deputy, has appeared less repentant. At the start of the trial, in 2011, he blamed Vietnamese forces for killing Cambodians. “I don’t want them to believe the Khmer Rouge are bad people, are criminals,” he said of those observing to the trial. “Nothing is true about that.” Nuon Chea, who often appeared in court in his trademark wraparound sunglasses, accepted “moral responsibility” for the deaths of nearly 2 million people but claimed total innocence for all crimes charged against him.
Because of the advanced age and poor health of the defendants, the case against them was divided into separate smaller trials in an effort to render justice before they die. In a statement read out to the court last year, he said he never ordered soldiers “to mistreat or kill people, to deprive them of food, or commit any genocide”, but added: “I would like to sincerely apologise to the public, the victims, the families, and all Cambodian people. I wish to show my remorse and pray for the lost souls.”
Both defendants face a second trial due to start by year’s end, this time on charges of genocide. That trial is expected to take years more to complete. The tribunal, launched in 2006 and once heralded as a great opportunity for Cambodia to confront its bloody past, has been bogged down by allegations of corruption and incompetence, spending up to the present day some $200m to convict only one defendant: Khmer Rouge prison director Kaing Guek Eav, sentenced to life imprisonment in 2011.
Suon Mom, 75-year-old woman whose husband and four children starved to death during the Khmer era, said: “My anger remains in my heart. I still remember the day I left Phnom Penh, walking along the road without having any food or water to drink ... Hopefully the court will sentence the two leaders to life in prison.” Illness and death have prevented other defendants from standing trial. Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, who both face an upcoming genocide trial, originally shared the dock with Khmer Rouge foreign minister Ieng Sary, who died in March, and his wife Ieng Thirith, the social affairs minister, who has dementia and was declared unfit for trial in 2012. The group’s top leader, Pol Pot, died in 1998.
Some say the money that financed the trial should have been spent on helping survivors instead, or on the impoverished country’s infrastructure. Despite the problems that have plagued the court, Lars Olsen, the court’s spokesman, called the verdict “a historic day” for both the people and legal system of Cambodia.
Chea Chhunleng, a 23-year-old business student, said he was not opposed to harsh sentences for the two leaders but the trial could not change the past. “The victims have waited 35 years for legal accountability, and now that the tribunal has rendered a judgment, it is a clear milestone.”
It “can only provide justice ... only the word justice. That is all,” he said. A group of 10 victims represented by the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) praised the court’s decision, saying: “We will finally be able to mourn our relatives. It was important for us to see those who planned and ordered these crimes be held to account.”
But lawyers for the two defendants said they would appeal against the verdict and sentence.
“It is unjust for my client – he did not know [of] or commit many of these crimes,” said Son Arun, a lawyer for Nuon Chea.
Khieu Samphan’s lawyer Kong Sam Onn added simply: “This is not justice.”