PHNOM PENH: Defence lawyers at Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge court yesterday denounced the trial of two former top regime leaders as a “showcase” that had pre-judged them as guilty.
Prosecutors are demanding the maximum sentence of life imprisonment for “Brother Number Two” Nuon Chea, 87, and ex-head of state Khieu Samphan, 82, for their roles in a regime that left up to two million people dead from 1975-79.
The trial is “a showcase of the conclusion that everyone involved wanted and expected from the day the tribunal was constituted,” said Nuon Chea’s lawyer, Victor Koppe, claiming that “no one in this court is interested in ascertaining the truth”.
Delivering its closing statement to the UN-backed tribunal, the defence said political interference had prevented it from obtaining evidence to support its case.
It also argued that if the defendants were guilty as charged, then so were other former Khmer Rouge cadres including Cambodian’s current strongman premier, Hun Sen.
“Prime Minister Hun Sen, Senate Chairman Chea Sim, and President of the National Assembly Heng Samrin all took active roles in carrying out the policies which the co-prosecutors say today were criminal as such,” Koppe said.
“If Nuon Chea is guilty, so too are they,” he added. “If Nuon Chea enslaved the Cambodian population, then these three men whose faces hang everywhere... in Phnom Penh were his loyal executioners.” Hun Sen was once a low-level Khmer Rouge commander but defected in 1977 to join Vietnamese forces fighting to overthrow the regime. He is opposed to pursuing more regime suspects.
The complex case of the regime’s two most senior surviving leaders has been split into a series of smaller trials, initially focusing on the forced evacuation of people into rural labour camps and related charges of crimes against humanity.
AFP
