Khmer Rouge bigwig faces arrest

Police in Cambodia have entered the house of the former Khmer Rouge Foreign Minister Ieng Sary.

BBC
11 November 2007

It is thought he will be arrested and taken to face trial at Cambodia's
UN-backed genocide tribunal.

Ieng Sary is Pol Pot's brother-in-law. He became the first senior Khmer
Rouge leader to defect in 1996 - and as a result was granted a royal pardon.

However, he is believed to be under investigation for crimes committed under
the 1970s regime.

He has repeatedly denied responsibility for any crime.

The United Nations says a royal pardon cannot protect someone from
prosecution.

Roads around Ieng Sary's luxury villa in the capital Phnom Penh have been
sealed off by military police.

Tribunal officials were seen entering the house, which Ieng Sary shares with
his wife, Ieng Thirith, who served as the Khmer Rouge social affairs
minister.

She is also likely to be arrested.

The BBC's Guy DeLauney in Phnom Penh says police and officials are currently
searching the house, which they have to do in the presence of those being
charged.

Torture and executions

Prosecutors for the tribunal have said there is evidence of Ieng Sary's
participation in crimes, including planning, directing and coordinating
forced labour and unlawful killings.

During the Khmer Rouge's 1975-79 rule, Ieng Sary convinced many educated
Cambodians who had fled the country to return.

Many were then tortured and executed as part of the purge of intellectuals,
some of them diplomats from his own office.

Ieng Sary is said to be ill with a heart condition, and travels to Bangkok
regularly for treatment.

Pol Pot, the founder and leader of the Khmer Rouge, died in a camp along the
border with Thailand in 1998.

His deputy Nuon Chea and Kang Kek Ieu, or Duch, head of the notorious Tuol
Sleng prison, have already been arrested by the tribunal to face charges of
war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The court got under way last year after a decade of negotiations between the
UN and the Cambodian government. Trials are expected to start in 2008.

As many as two million people are thought to have died during the four years
of Khmer Rouge rule, but no-one has ever been prosecuted.