French Lawyer Arrives for Cambodia Genocide Hearing

Cambodian Buddhists monks stand in front of a memorial stupa displayed with more than 8,000 skulls of victims of the Khmer Rouge at Choeung Ek, a "Killing Fields" site located on the outskirts of Phnom Penh April 17. (Photo: Reuters)

By KER MUNTHIT / AP WRITER / PHNOM PENH
Monday, April 21, 2008

A French lawyer who defended terrorists and a former Nazi officer arrived in Cambodia on Monday to represent a former Khmer Rouge leader.

Jacques Verges, dressed in a dark brown suit, declined to comment and only said "go to the court" before being whisked away in a car after his arrival at Phnom Penh International Airport.

Verges will join a Cambodian attorney to argue former Khmer Rouge leader Khieu Samphan's appeal against his pretrial detention.

The UN-assisted tribunal has held Khieu Samphan since Novvember 19 on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity stemming from atrocities committed under Khmer Rouge rule in 1975-79.

The communist group's radical policies led to the deaths of some 1.7 million people from starvation, disease, overwork and execution.

The tribunal is expected to hold its first trial later this year.

Khieu Samphan is one of five former leaders of the group held for their alleged roles in the atrocities. He has repeatedly denied any involvement.

Verges has won international notoriety for his past efforts in defending criminals such as Venezuelan terrorist Carlos the Jackal, confessed serial killer Charles Sobhraj and Nazi Gestapo officer Klaus Barbie.

He is an old friend of Khieu Samphan, a French-educated intellectual with whom he shares a left-wing outlook.

Khieu Samphan has said he has known Verges since he attended university in France in the 1950s, when both were active in student movements against French colonialism.

"He and I used to attend meetings of student committees against colonialism. That's what bound us together in friendship," Khieu Samphan said in a 2004 interview with The Associated Press.

Khieu Samphan's defense team also includes Say Bory, a Cambodian lawyer who used to serve on the constitutional council, the country's highest legal body.

Say Bory said the defense is challenging both the tribunal's grounds for detaining Khieu Samphan and its arguments implicating him in the Khmer Rouge's atrocities.