Cambodia's "Killing Fields" trial gets go-ahead http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSBKK6525920070613
Wed Jun 13, 2007
PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Cambodian and international judges agreed the underlying rules on Wednesday for the special court to try Pol Pot's top surviving henchmen, allowing the long-awaited "Killing Fields" tribunal to proceed in earnest.
Canadian co-prosecutor Robert Petit, who has been compiling preliminary cases against the top Khmer Rouge leaders, told reporters he would lodge his first formal accusations with the court "within a few weeks".
Around 1.7 million people are thought to have died during Pol Pot's four-year reign of terror, which was brought to an end in 1979 by a Vietnamese invasion.
Most of the victims of his "Year Zero" revolution were executed, or died of torture, disease, overwork or starvation.
Pol Pot himself died in the jungle in 1998 in one of the Khmer Rouge's final redoubts along the border with Thailand. Neither the self-styled "Brother Number One" nor any of his comrades ever faced justice for the atrocities.
The $53 million United Nations-backed court has been plagued by delays and arguments between local and international legal officials, although today's approval of the court's internal rules removes the last formal obstacles to its work.
However, no suspect will be appearing in court for at least six months. French investigating judge Marcel Lemonde said he hoped to have his probes into the first suspects wrapped up some time within the first half of 2008. "We want our investigation work to finish as quickly as possible," he said. The most likely defendants are "Brother Number Two" Nuon Chea, former Foreign Minister Ieng Sary, former President Khieu Samphan and Duch, head of the Tuol Sleng interrogation and torture centre in Phnom Penh.
Japan is the major financial backer of the court, which is expected to reveal the full extent of China's involvement with the Khmer Rouge.
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