Khmer Rouge ‘Brother Number Two’ Nuon Chea dies in Cambodia aged 93

Researchers believe the former right-hand man of Pol Pot was directly involved in the regime’s extremist purges and executions

He was serving life in prison after convictions by a UN-backed tribunal on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes

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Nuon Chea sits in court before a hearing of the UN-backed war crimes tribunal in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, in November. Photo: AP

Published: 10:26pm, 4 Aug 2019Updated: 11:10pm, 4 Aug 2019

Nuon Chea, the chief ideologue of the communist Khmer Rouge regime that destroyed a generation of Cambodians, died on Sunday, the country’s UN-assisted genocide tribunal said. He was 93.

Known as Brother No. 2, he was the right-hand man of Pol Pot, the leader of the regime that ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. The group’s fanatical efforts to realise a utopian society led to the death of some 1.7 million people – more than a quarter of the country’s population at the time – from starvation, disease, overwork and executions.

Researchers believe Nuon Chea was responsible for the extremist policies of the Khmer Rouge and was directly involved in its purges and executions.

He was serving life in prison after convictions by the UN-backed tribunal on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

But Nuon Chea never admitted his guilt. At the long-awaited Khmer Rouge trials, he told a court that he and his comrades were not “bad people,” denying responsibility for any deaths.

For decades after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, Nuon Chea lived quietly with his family in a wooden house in Pailin, a former guerilla stronghold near the border with Thailand.