Khmer Rouge leader starts appeal

A tourist studies portraits of victims of the Khmer Rouge at the Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocide in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on Tuesday. By Tang Chhin Sothy, AFP/Getty Images

Khmer Rouge leader Khieu Samphan is followed by journalists as he steps out of a hotel in Sihanoukville, south of Phnom Penh, back in December 1998. By Rob Elliott, AFP

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — The former Khmer Rouge head of state was headed for Cambodia's U.N.-assisted genocide tribunal for a hearing Wednsday including the first courtroom appearance of his controversial French lawyer.

One of the lawyers representing Khieu Samphan, 76, in his appeal to be freed from pretrial detention is Jacques Verges, who has earned notoriety for having represented terrorists and a former Nazi officer accused of World War II atrocities, among other unpopular clients.

The tribunal has charged Khieu Samphan with crimes against humanity and war crimes committed when the communist Khmer Rouge held power in 1975-79.

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Some 1.7 million people died from starvation, disease, overwork and execution as a result of the group's radical policies in trying to build a classless society.

None of the leadership of the now-defunct Khmer Rouge has been tried yet. The tribunal is expected to hold its first trial later this year.

Khieu Samphan has been detained by tribunal since Nov. 19, one of five senior leaders in its custody.

In its detention order, the tribunal's judges alleged that Khieu Samphan "aided and abetted" his regime's policies that were "characterized by murder, extermination, imprisonment, persecution on political grounds and other inhumane acts such as forcible transfers of the population, enslavement and forced labor."

But Khieu Samphan, in various public statements made before he was arrested, has blamed the late Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot for the group's policies, including decisions to purge many Khmer Rouge cadres suspected to be disloyal or spies.

Verges, 83, has known Khieu Samphan since they were both active in left-wing student activities in Paris in the 1950s.

The flamboyant lawyer, who often uses his trials as a pulpit for expressing his radical viewpoints, is expected to use a more aggressive approach than other lawyers at the tribunal have so far employed.

He has previously defended clients such as Venezuelan terrorist Carlos the Jackal, confessed serial killer Charles Sobhraj and Nazi Gestapo officer Klaus Barbie.

Wednesday's hearing was to be closed to reporters and the public at the request of prosecutors. They objected to the possibility of Khieu Samphan's lawyers presenting arguments that related to evidence bearing on the charges against their client rather than the merits of his provisional detention. They did not elaborate.

On Tuesday, Khieu Samphan's Cambodian lawyer, Say Bory, called the tribunal's decision to hold the closed hearing "regrettable" because his client "desired to speak for the public to hear him."