Khmer Rouge Leaders Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea given life in prison for 'extermination, inhumane acts and attacks against human dignity' 35 years after their reign of terror claimed 2million lives

Thirty-five years after the genocidal rule of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge ended, a UN-backed tribunal on Thursday Aug 07,2014 sentenced two top leaders of the former regime - Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea to life in prison for 'extermination, inhumane acts and attacks against human dignity'

 

The historic verdicts were announced against Khieu Samphan, the regime's 83-year-old former head of state, and Nuon Chea, its 88-year-old chief ideologue - the only two surviving leaders of the regime left to stand trial.

Both are seen on a screen at the court's press center of the war crimes tribunal in Phnom Penh

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 — about 1.7 million people — died under rule of the Khmer Rouge through a combination of starvation, medical neglect, overwork and execution when the group held power in 1975-79.

A tourist looks at human skulls of genocide victims at the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, formerly the most notorious Khmer Rouge prison, in Phnom Penh

THE BRUTAL TERROR OF LIFE UNDER THE KHMER ROUGE 

• The Khmer Rouge, the communist ruling party in Cambodia between 1975 and 1979, was responsible for the deaths of almost two million people, through executions, torture and starvation.

• Its leader, Pol Pot, was determined for society to be transformed into classless agricultural communism – at any cost.

• City dwellers were marched into the countryside to become farmers in labour camps, with those refusing to move shot dead and their homes burned to the ground.

• Factories, schools, banks and even hospitals were shut down and the population denied medicine.

• Many died through starvation – after all, most people from cities had no idea how to fend for themselves in the countryside and farmers were often too terrified to help them adapt.

• Some died through exhaustion, because the regime severely overworked those tending the land.

• Many were tortured and executed for being ‘enemies of the regime’. 

• Anyone with links to the former Cambodian government, filmmakers, writers and indeed anyone deemed to be intellectual deserved to be put to death in the eyes of Pot.

• Even simply owning a pair of glasses could prove fatal, because as far as the regime was concerned, it meant that books were being read instead of hard labour being carried out. 

• Religion was outlawed, so Christians, Muslims and Buddhists were also executed in huge numbers. 

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 $200million, yet it had convicted only one defendant — prison director Kaing Guek Eav, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2011.

The current trial began in 2011 with four senior Khmer Rouge leaders; only two remain. 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.

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 for its extreme policies.

Nuon Chea, who is known as Brother No. 2 for being Pol Pot's trusted deputy, had also denied responsibility, testifying in 2011 that Vietnamese forces — not the Khmer Rouge — had killed Cambodians en masse. 

'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.'

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

The Tribunal's Chief Judge  Nil Nonn asked both men to rise for the verdicts but the frail Nuon Chea, wearing dark sunglasses, said he was too weak to stand from his wheelchair and was allowed to remain seated. 

The Tribunal's Chief Judge Nil Nonn said both men were guilty of 'extermination encompassing murder, political persecution, and other inhumane acts comprising forced transfer, enforced disappearances and attacks against human dignity.'

There was no visible reaction from either of the accused, both of whom have denied wrongdoing. 

The rulings can be appealed, but Nil Nonn told the court that 'given the gravity of the crimes' both would remain in detention.