The special court to judge the crimes of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia confirmed on Thursday the life sentence for genocide against the former president of the regime, Khieu Samphan, the last decision before its dissolution of this body backed by the UN.
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The court found that the 91-year-old former leader is also guilty of multiple crimes against humanity such as murders, slavery, forced marriages or rape for their role in this communist regime.
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This is the latest ruling of this court, which has cost more than 330 million dollars and has only prosecuted five leaders of the Khmer Rouge, two of whom died before trial.
“The Supreme Court chamber finds no merit in Khieu Samphan’s arguments on genocide and rejects them”Judge Kong Srim noted in the lengthy ruling.
The former president of the State of Democratic Kampuchea, present-day Cambodia, “had direct knowledge of the crimes and shared the intention of committing them with the other participants in the common criminal enterprise,” the judge added.
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The accusations against him are associated with “some of the most heinous acts” of the ultra-Maoist dictatorship, accused of killing some two million people between 1975 and 1979 through starvation, torture, forced labor and mass executions.
Khieu Samphan, the last surviving Khmer Rouge leader, attended the trial in a wheelchair and listened to the two-and-a-half hour sentencing with headphones.
The former president of the regime, led in practice by Pol Pot, had appealed the life sentence handed down in 2018 by this mixed court dedicated to studying the genocide in Cambodia.
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Previously, he had also been sentenced to life imprisonment in 2014, a sentence ratified on appeal in 2016, for crimes against humanity for the forced evacuation of Phnom Penh.
More than 500 people, including relatives of victims, Buddhist monks and diplomats, attended the hearing for a ‘historic day“, according to court spokesman Neth Pheaktra. Chum Mey, 91, one of the few survivors of the S-21 torture center, celebrated the verdict.
“I am happy, the sentence is reasonable, it does justice,” said this man who passed through the fearsome Phnom Penh prison where 18,000 people died.
Lim Ching, who lost more than 20 relatives, including her mother, told AFP that “the sentence is correct, the Pol Pot regime did bad things and killed people.”
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brutal regime
The Cambodian Genocide Tribunal, a UN-backed hybrid court, is due to dissolve within three years after the filing work is complete.
The head of the regime, Pol Pot, known as “Brother Number One”, never faced justice because he died in 1998 before the installation of the court.
The conviction for genocide against the former president refers to the persecution of the Vietnamese ethnic minority, whom the Khmer Rouge saw as an enemy danger.
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The frail Khieu Samphan remained hunched in his wheelchair as he listened intently to the sentence.
Along with Khieu Samphan, “Brother Number Two,” Nuon Chea, was sentenced in 2018 to life in prison for genocide and other crimes, including forced marriage and rape. Nuon Chea died in 2019.
The only other person convicted by the special court was Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch, head of the S-21 torture center who died several years after his conviction. Despite few court convictions, experts consider that he did an important job to promote national reconciliation.
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Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Bin Chhin told reporters after the ruling that the court was “internationally recognized as a model” for other countries seeking to prosecute cases after wars or internal conflicts.
Fergal Gaynor, one of the prosecutors, admitted that no court can do full justice for such “immeasurably vast” horrors, but that the court contributed to the fight against impunity for mass atrocities.
AFP
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