Khmer Rouge leaders convicted of genocide in landmark court ruling
- The two most senior surviving members of the regime were found guilty of crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions
A United Nations-backed court in Cambodia has for the first time found leaders of the Khmer Rouge, the ultranationalist regime of Pol Pot that terrorised Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, guilty of genocide.
The verdicts against Nuon Chea, 92, and Khieu Samphan, 87, the two most senior surviving members of the regime, also included crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions. Both men were sentenced to life in prison.
Chief Judge Nil Nonn, in a court on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, declared that the Khmer Rouge leaders took part in a “joint criminal enterprise” through which they committed the crimes.
The Khmer Rouge killed at least 1.7 million people, and singled out ethnic minorities – such as the Cham Muslims and Vietnamese – for particularly brutal repression.
Nonn defined the regime’s goal as a “social revolution” that they hoped would result in an “atheistic and homogenous population of local peasants.”
The convictions were the international tribunal’s first for genocide, a crime that is notoriously difficult to prosecute in international courts. Chea, also known as Brother No 2, was Pol Pot’s second-in-command, while Samphan was the regime’s head of state.