The former Khmer Rouge head of state appeared before Cambodia’s genocide tribunal for his first hearing yesterday, where famed French lawyer Jacques Verges will argue against his detention.
Khieu Samphan, who was detained by the UN-backed court in November on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, listened stony-faced as head judge Prak Kimsan read out the background of the case against him.
He stood as he was asked to confirm his name, age, hometown and job to the court, which was set up to try former Khmer Rouge leaders for genocide and crimes against humanity during their brutal 1975 to 1979 rule.
“I have had no job since leaving the jungle. [I have] only my wife, who struggles to feed me and my family,” Khieu Samphan said in Khmer, referring to his 1998 defection from the then-dying Khmer Rouge guerrilla movement based in the remote northwest.
Khieu Samphan, whom the court documents say is 76, was dressed in a light-grey shirt and trousers and spoke in a quiet, hoarse voice as he addressed the three Cambodian and two foreign judges.
The court then went into a closed-door session.
Verges, who has defended some of the world’s most notorious figures including Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie and Venezuelan terrorist “Carlos the Jackal,” is expected to argue that his client should be freed on bail while awaiting trial.
A fierce anti-colonialist, Verges reportedly befriended Khieu Samphan and other future Khmer Rouge leaders while at university in Paris in the 1950s.
In documents submitted to the court at the time of Khieu Samphan’s detention, the prosecution said releasing him on bail could provoke public anger, possibly putting the elderly defendant at risk of revenge attacks.
“There is a danger that he will flee, as he lives near the Thai border and now faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment if convicted,” it said. “If he remains at liberty, this could provoke the anger of victims and the public.”
Defense lawyers, however, argued that Khieu Samphan had no real power under the regime and in appeal documents lodged in December they petitioned for a dismissal of the detention order “because Mr Khieu Samphan is not guilty.”
“He was simply a head of state in name only,” they said.
Khieu Samphan has never denied the bloodletting under the Khmer Rouge but the former head of state of Cambodia’s radical communist government has never admitted to a role in the regime’s excesses.
Up to 2 million people are believed to have been executed or died of starvation and overwork as the communist regime emptied Cambodia’s cities, exiling millions to vast collective farms in a bid to forge an agrarian utopia.
Cambodia’s genocide tribunal convened in 2006 after nearly a decade of haggling between the government and the UN.
Public trials of the leaders are expected to begin later this year, but there are fears that time is running out to try the aging and ailing cadres.
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