- Title: File of former Khmer Rouge President Khieu Samphan ahead of appeal verdict
- Date: 22nd November 2016
- Summary: PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA (FILE - DECEMBER 29, 1998) (ORIGINALLY 4:3) (REUTERS) ****WARNING CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY*** VARIOUS OF KHIEU SAMPHAN ARRIVING TO MEET PRINCE NORODOM RANARIDDH PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA (FILE - DECEMBER 29, 1998) (ORIGINALLY 4:3) (REUTERS) NUON CHEA (FIRST MAN IN LINE, WEARING DOTTED BLACK AND WHITE JACKET) AND KHIEU SAMPHAN ARRIVING FOR A NEWS CONFERENCE KHIEU SAMPHAN (CENTRE) AND NUON CHEA (RIGHT) SEATED KHIEU SAMPHAN SAYING (English): "YES, SORRY, VERY SORRY" At a news conference after arriving in Phnom Penh, Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea issue a public apology for the first time since the 1970s reign of terror. He, along with Nuon Chea, later returned to Pailin after it became clear the government might not protect them from trial. In 2007, they were arrested and charged by a U.N.-backed tribunal for crimes against humanity. They would appear numerous times in front of the court over the next few years. The court, operated jointly by Cambodia and the United Nations, was set up in 2005 with the aim of trying "those most responsible" for the bloodshed.
- Embargoed: 7th December 2016 05:33
- Keywords: Khieu Samphan court trial Cambodia U.N. United Nations Khmer Rouge verdict genocide crimes against humanity Pol Pot
- Location: UNKNOWN LOCATION / PAILIN / PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA
- City: UNKNOWN LOCATION / PAILIN / PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA
- Country: Cambodia
- Topics: Crime/Law/Justice,Judicial Process/Court Cases/Court Decisions
- Reuters ID: LVA00559IZDC5
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: THIS EDIT CONTAINS MATERIAL THAT WAS ORIGINALLY 4:3
A U.N.-backed tribunal in Phnom Penh on Wednesday (November 23) is due to hand down the verdict on an appeal by one of Cambodia's surviving former Khmer Rouge cadres who was found guilty of crimes against humanity two years ago.
In August, 2014, former president and Pol Pot confidant Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea, Deputy Secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (the Khmer Rouge's name for Cambodia), of the 1970s Khmer Rouge regime were sentenced to life in jail by the same tribunal.
Khieu Samphan, 85, was at the apex of power within the regime, which was responsible for the deaths of around 2.2 million Cambodians from 1975-1979.
Khieu Samphan was the leading intellectual among the small group of Cambodian students in 1950s Paris who became imbued with Communism and returned home to the Southeast Asian nation to form the core of the guerrilla movement that became the Khmer Rouge.
The French-educated guerilla leader has expressed regret over the years since the regime's fall, but has more or less maintained that he was only a figurehead and knew nothing about the atrocities committed.
He was arrested on November 19, 2007, a few months after Nuon Chea, known as Pol Pot's right-hand man and "Brother Number Two".
Many of the Khmer Rouge's victims were executed. The rest died of disease, starvation or overwork as Pol Pot pursued his dream of creating an agrarian peasant utopia. Pol Pot died in 1998 in the final Khmer Rouge redoubt of Anlong Veng.
The majority of Cambodians alive now were born after the bloody era and they embrace the capitalism the Khmer Rouge deplored. Their Cambodia has enjoyed unprecedented peace and development since the late 1990s, but judgment upon Pol Pot's henchmen is still significant for most people. - Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
- Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2016. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
- Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
