Khmer Rouge tribunal concludes pre-trial probe into 'big fish'

via CAAI News Media

PHNOM PENH, Jan. 14 (AP) - (Kyodo)—A U.N.-backed tribunal announced Thursday it has concluded its judicial investigation in a case in which charges have been laid against five surviving former Khmer Rouge leaders.

In a statement, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia said the judicial investigation into alleged crimes committed by the five between April 1975 and January 1979 took two and a half years to complete.

During the course of the investigation, it said, tens of thousands of pages of documentary evidence were compiled and more than 800 statements were taken from witnesses, civil parties and those charged.

The case, which will be the second taken up by the tribunal since it was established in 2006, concerns Ieng Sary, who was the Khmer Rouge's foreign minister, Khieu Samphan, nominal leader, Nuon Chea, chief ideologue, Ieng Thirith, wife of Ieng Sary, and Kaing Guek Ien, known as Duch, chief of the Tuol Sleng torture center.

A hearing of the first case, which concerned only Duch, was concluded in November last year. The verdict is still due.

It remains to be seen if Duch will be tried along with the other four former Khmer Rouge leaders in the second trial, which is expected to start next year at the earliest.

All the five leaders are charged with war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and national crimes of torture, homicide and religious persecution.

The Khmer Rouge is blamed for the deaths of at least 1.7 million Cambodians and others in the late 1970s.