Khmer Rouge Suspects Claim Destitution

Ieng Thirith sits at her house in Pailin some 285 kilometers
(177miles) northwester of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, in 1996 photo. Former Khmer
Rouge Foreign Minister Ieng Sary and his wife Ieng Thirith, who served the
regime as a minister for social affairs, were brought to tribunal facilities
in Phnom Penh under warrants issued for both of them, a tribunal statement
said. (AP Photo/Documentation Center of Cambodia, Youk Chhang, HO)


Khmer Rouge Suspects Claim Destitution
By KER MUNTHIT - 1 hour ago

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) - Two former ministers of Cambodia's brutal Khmer
Rouge regime, both charged with crimes against humanity, have said they need
financial aid to defend themselves before the country's U.N.-backed
tribunal, according to a statement issued Tuesday.

The claim by Ieng Sary, a former foreign minister, and his wife Ieng
Thirith, an ex-social affairs minister, was disparaged by fellow Cambodians,
who said they had lived in relatively lavish circumstances until their
arrest Monday.

The couple were formally charged with crimes against humanity Tuesday by
Cambodia's U.N.-supported genocide tribunal. Ieng Sary also was charged with
war crimes.

"It's a big step because they are big fish," said Kek Galabru, president of
the Cambodian human rights group Licadho.

The radical policies of the communist Khmer Rouge are widely blamed for the
deaths of some 1.7 million people from starvation, disease, overwork and
execution. None of the group's leaders has faced trial yet, though four
people have been arrested by the tribunal.

Their arrests Monday came almost three decades after the Khmer Rouge fell
from power, with many fearing the aging suspects might die before they ever
see a courtroom. Trials are expected to begin next year.

The U.N.-assisted tribunal was created last year after seven years of
contentious negotiations between the United Nations and Cambodia.

Ieng Sary, who a tribunal document said is 82, and his wife, 75, were
members of the inner circle of the Khmer Rouge. They were French-educated
like the group's late charismatic leader Pol Pot, whose extremist policies
turned the country into a virtual charnel house. Ieng Thirith's sister,
Khieu Ponnary, was Pol Pot's first wife.

People familiar with the lifestyle of Ieng Sary and his wife say they are
financially well-off. They pointed to the villa the couple own in Phnom
Penh, their Toyota Land Cruiser and their ability to regularly travel by
plane to neighboring Thailand for medical treatment.

Their travel and property makes their claims of destitution "laughable" and
"ludicrous," said Theary Seng, director of the Cambodian nonprofit group
Center for Social Development.

"Why don't they sell their villa" to finance their legal fees, Youk Chhang,
director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, wondered out loud. His
group researches Khmer Rouge atrocities.

Rupert Skilbeck, a tribunal official, said the U.N. will pay the legal fees
for all defendants until the end of this year, and is currently assessing
the defendants' financial means to determine whether the payments will
continue.

Ieng Sary "promoted, instigated, facilitated, encouraged and/or condoned the
perpetration of the crimes" when the Khmer Rouge held power, according to a
July 18 document presented by the tribunal's prosecutors to its
investigating judges.

It said there was evidence of Ieng Sary's participation in crimes which
included planning, directing and coordinating Khmer Rouge "policies of
forcible transfer, forced labor and unlawful killings."

Ieng Thirith is accused of participating in "planning, direction,
coordination and ordering of widespread purges ... and unlawful killing or
murder of staff members from within the Ministry of Social Affairs," the
prosecutors' filing said.

At a trial conducted in 1979 under the auspices of Vietnam, which invaded
Cambodia to oust the Khmer Rouge, Ieng Sary was sentenced to death in
absentia. But the proceedings, in the fashion of a Soviet show trial, served
the purposes of propaganda more than justice.

Because the U.S. and China opposed the government installed by the
Vietnamese - and supported a resistance coalition in which the Khmer Rouge
played a part - there was little backing for a genocide trial, even as the
scale of the horrors the regime perpetrated became more obvious.

Only when the Khmer Rouge failed to honor a 1991 U.N.-brokered peace
agreement did the idea of an international genocide trial gain traction. In
1997, Cambodia finally broached the idea.

(This version CORRECTS Ieng Sary's age to 82.)

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