Judge to quit court

Photo by: Tracey Shelton
International Co-investigating judge Marcel Lemonde at an outreach event in Pailin in early 2008.

via CAAI

Thursday, 16 September 2010 18:47 James O'Toole

AS the Khmer Rouge tribunal marked the issuance of indictments in its second case yesterday, French Co-Investigating Judge Marcel Lemonde announced that he would be stepping down from his critical position after a four-year tenure.

“I… am passing the baton to someone else,” Lemonde said yesterday at a press conference announcing indictments in Case 002. “I have other long-standing plans that I cannot now ignore.”

Siegfriend Blunk, who currently serves as reserve Investigating Judge, will take over Lemonde’s position later this year, as the court moves forward with pending investigations in its third and fourth cases.

Lemonde has been pursuing these investigations on his own after his Cambodian counterpart, You Bunleng, declined to sign off on the investigations in June.

Defence lawyers sought to have You Bunleng removed following the incident, claiming that the uniform opposition among the court’s Cambodian staff to further investigations is the result of interference from the Cambodian government.

You Bunleng explained in June that he believed the court should focus on the second case before proceeding with Cases 003 and 004. But with the Case 002 investigation concluded as of yesterday, his position on the issue remained elusive. ... read the full story in tomorrow’s Phnom Penh Post or the see the updated story in Sport online from 3PM UTC/GMT +7 hours. (New York 4AM, Los Angeles 1AM, Chicago 3AM, Paris 10AM, Toronto 4AM, Sydney 6PM, Bejing 4PM, Tokyo 5PM, London 9AM, Johannesburg 10AM, Riyadh 11AM, Mumbai 1:30 PM)