Phil Star.com
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
PHNOM PENH (AP) - A Cambodian judge must immediately be removed from the UN-backed tribunal to try former Khmer Rouge leaders because of his dubious judicial record and political background, defense lawyers say.
The lawyers are objecting to Ney Thol, a judge who sits on the tribunal's pre-trial chamber that will hold an appeal hearing Feb. 4 for Nuon Chea, the former Khmer Rouge ideologue.
Ney Thol must be immediately disqualified not just from the upcoming hearing but from all future proceedings because his "continued presence on the bench threatens to undermine the credibility and integrity" of the entire tribunal, said Victor Koppe and Michiel Pestman in a motion received Wednesday.
Five senior Khmer Rouge figures, including Nuon Chea, whose radical policies led to the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people in the 1970s, were arrested last year and are being held in the capital, Phnom Penh, on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Their trials are to start this year.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
PHNOM PENH (AP) - A Cambodian judge must immediately be removed from the UN-backed tribunal to try former Khmer Rouge leaders because of his dubious judicial record and political background, defense lawyers say.
The lawyers are objecting to Ney Thol, a judge who sits on the tribunal's pre-trial chamber that will hold an appeal hearing Feb. 4 for Nuon Chea, the former Khmer Rouge ideologue.
Ney Thol must be immediately disqualified not just from the upcoming hearing but from all future proceedings because his "continued presence on the bench threatens to undermine the credibility and integrity" of the entire tribunal, said Victor Koppe and Michiel Pestman in a motion received Wednesday.
Five senior Khmer Rouge figures, including Nuon Chea, whose radical policies led to the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people in the 1970s, were arrested last year and are being held in the capital, Phnom Penh, on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Their trials are to start this year.
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