Khmer Rouge leader Nuon Chea looks out from his Pailin, Cambodia, border home in this July 26, 2003 file photo. Nuon Chea, Pol Pot's second in command from 1975 to 1979, is scheduled to appear Monday, Feb. 4, 2008, at a hearing at the U.N.-backed genocide tribunal in Phnom Penh. Chea, along with several other top Khmer Rouge leaders, is in a U.N. detention center in Phnom Penh awaiting trial on crimes against humanity. More than 1.7 million Cambodians were killed, starved or worked to death while the Khmer Rouge was in power. (AP Photo/David Longstreath, File)February 3, 2008
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia—Former Khmer Rouge leader Nuon Chea will ask to be released on bail when he makes his first appearance before Cambodia's U.N.-backed genocide tribunal on Monday, his lawyer said.
Nuon Chea, a Khmer Rouge ideologist and a top leader of the murderous movement, is scheduled to appear before the tribunal's pre-trial chamber.
The tribunal has detained Nuon Chea since last year on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his alleged role in the Khmer Rouge atrocities that led to the deaths of some 1.7 million people when the communist movement held power in Cambodia in 1975-79.
The 81-year-old is one of five former Khmer Rouge leaders pending trial, which is expected to start later this year.
Son Arun, Nuon Chea's lawyer, said his client would appeal his detention and ask that he be released on bail because he "feels an absence of freedom in his detention, where all he does is eat and sleep."
"It is not like when he used to live with his family," Son Arun said, adding his client was in normal health and ready to appear before the hearing.
The tribunal investigating judges have charged Nuon Chea with "murder, torture, imprisonment, persecution, extermination, deportation, forcible transfer, enslavement and other inhumane acts."
The tribunal says the detention was necessary to prevent him from pressuring witnesses or destroying evidence. They say Nuon Chea's own safety could also be at risk if he was at large.
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia—Former Khmer Rouge leader Nuon Chea will ask to be released on bail when he makes his first appearance before Cambodia's U.N.-backed genocide tribunal on Monday, his lawyer said.
Nuon Chea, a Khmer Rouge ideologist and a top leader of the murderous movement, is scheduled to appear before the tribunal's pre-trial chamber.
The tribunal has detained Nuon Chea since last year on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his alleged role in the Khmer Rouge atrocities that led to the deaths of some 1.7 million people when the communist movement held power in Cambodia in 1975-79.
The 81-year-old is one of five former Khmer Rouge leaders pending trial, which is expected to start later this year.
Son Arun, Nuon Chea's lawyer, said his client would appeal his detention and ask that he be released on bail because he "feels an absence of freedom in his detention, where all he does is eat and sleep."
"It is not like when he used to live with his family," Son Arun said, adding his client was in normal health and ready to appear before the hearing.
The tribunal investigating judges have charged Nuon Chea with "murder, torture, imprisonment, persecution, extermination, deportation, forcible transfer, enslavement and other inhumane acts."
The tribunal says the detention was necessary to prevent him from pressuring witnesses or destroying evidence. They say Nuon Chea's own safety could also be at risk if he was at large.
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