Miss Seng Theary (left) with Mia Farrow (right)during a peace rally in Phnom Penh on the 20th Jan. 2008 to draw attention to the suffering of the victims of the Darfur conflict.
PHNOM PENH (AFP) - Survivors of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge publicly confronted the regime's "Brother Number Two" at a UN-backed genocide tribunal Friday, marking the first time victims have faced a senior cadre in court.
Theary Seng, whose parents were killed during the Khmer Rouge's 1975-1979 rule, stood before the tribunal to urge the judges not to free Nuon Chea before his trial on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The 81-year-old is the senior-most Khmer Rouge cadre detained by the court over his alleged role in one of the 20th century's worst atrocities, in which up to two million people are believed to have died.
In Nuon Chea's first public hearing before the tribunal, his lawyers asked the court to release him pending trial, saying he was wrongly interrogated without his attorneys after his arrest in September.
Theary Seng, a Cambodian-American who survived the regime's atrocities as a child and is now a lawyer, urged the court not to free him, saying that his regime had shown no mercy when she was jailed as a seven-year-old.
"My brother, who was younger than me, and I were put in prison under Mr Nuon Chea's regime. We were not informed of our rights. There was no due process and we were arrested arbitrarily," she told the court.
"They treated us inhumanely -- for us, the graveyard was our playground," she said, standing behind a desk opposite Nuon Chea in the pre-trial chambers.
"Here Mr Nuon Chea is afforded all the protection of the best legal principles and ideals (in) both domestic and international law," she said.
Nuon Chea, who was the Khmer Rouge's chief ideologue, sat impassively as Theary Seng and three lawyers representing other Cambodian victims spoke. Those survivors did not speak during the two-day hearing, which ended late Friday.
The court is expected to rule next week on Nuon Chea's request to be released, but there is still no date for his actual trial.
Helen Jarvis, the tribunal's spokeswoman, called the appearance of the regime survivors "historic."
"To actually stand across the room from someone who a victim feels is responsible for their suffering is very important and at the leading edge of international justice," she told AFP.
Following Friday's hearing, Dutch attorney Victor Koppe, one of Nuon Chea's two foreign lawyers, said he was concerned about the presumption of guilt that appeared to be weighing against his client.
"I stress the importance of presumption of innocence as a legal concept... it is the most fundamental issue of this whole tribunal," Koppe said.
"The question is whether or not everything in this tribunal is institutionalised in such a way that only guilty verdicts can come."
Nuon Chea was the closest deputy of Khmer Rouge supreme leader Pol Pot -- who died in 1998 without ever facing justice -- and was allegedly the architect of the regime's devastating execution policies.
Up to two million people died of starvation and overwork, or were executed by the Khmer Rouge, which dismantled modern Cambodian society in its effort to forge a radical agrarian utopia.
Cities were emptied, their populations exiled to vast collective farms, while schools were closed, religion banned and the educated classes targeted for extermination.
Cambodia's genocide tribunal was convened in 2006 after nearly a decade of fractious talks between the government and the United Nations over how to prosecute the regime's leadership.
Despite the arrests last year of five top cadres, the tribunal remains dogged by delays and funding issues.
On Thursday the court announced that it would ask donors -- Japan, Australia and several Western nations -- to triple its 56.3-million-dollar budget so that it could continue to work for two years past its scheduled 2009 end date.
PHNOM PENH (AFP) - Survivors of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge publicly confronted the regime's "Brother Number Two" at a UN-backed genocide tribunal Friday, marking the first time victims have faced a senior cadre in court.
Theary Seng, whose parents were killed during the Khmer Rouge's 1975-1979 rule, stood before the tribunal to urge the judges not to free Nuon Chea before his trial on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The 81-year-old is the senior-most Khmer Rouge cadre detained by the court over his alleged role in one of the 20th century's worst atrocities, in which up to two million people are believed to have died.
In Nuon Chea's first public hearing before the tribunal, his lawyers asked the court to release him pending trial, saying he was wrongly interrogated without his attorneys after his arrest in September.
Theary Seng, a Cambodian-American who survived the regime's atrocities as a child and is now a lawyer, urged the court not to free him, saying that his regime had shown no mercy when she was jailed as a seven-year-old.
"My brother, who was younger than me, and I were put in prison under Mr Nuon Chea's regime. We were not informed of our rights. There was no due process and we were arrested arbitrarily," she told the court.
"They treated us inhumanely -- for us, the graveyard was our playground," she said, standing behind a desk opposite Nuon Chea in the pre-trial chambers.
"Here Mr Nuon Chea is afforded all the protection of the best legal principles and ideals (in) both domestic and international law," she said.
Nuon Chea, who was the Khmer Rouge's chief ideologue, sat impassively as Theary Seng and three lawyers representing other Cambodian victims spoke. Those survivors did not speak during the two-day hearing, which ended late Friday.
The court is expected to rule next week on Nuon Chea's request to be released, but there is still no date for his actual trial.
Helen Jarvis, the tribunal's spokeswoman, called the appearance of the regime survivors "historic."
"To actually stand across the room from someone who a victim feels is responsible for their suffering is very important and at the leading edge of international justice," she told AFP.
Following Friday's hearing, Dutch attorney Victor Koppe, one of Nuon Chea's two foreign lawyers, said he was concerned about the presumption of guilt that appeared to be weighing against his client.
"I stress the importance of presumption of innocence as a legal concept... it is the most fundamental issue of this whole tribunal," Koppe said.
"The question is whether or not everything in this tribunal is institutionalised in such a way that only guilty verdicts can come."
Nuon Chea was the closest deputy of Khmer Rouge supreme leader Pol Pot -- who died in 1998 without ever facing justice -- and was allegedly the architect of the regime's devastating execution policies.
Up to two million people died of starvation and overwork, or were executed by the Khmer Rouge, which dismantled modern Cambodian society in its effort to forge a radical agrarian utopia.
Cities were emptied, their populations exiled to vast collective farms, while schools were closed, religion banned and the educated classes targeted for extermination.
Cambodia's genocide tribunal was convened in 2006 after nearly a decade of fractious talks between the government and the United Nations over how to prosecute the regime's leadership.
Despite the arrests last year of five top cadres, the tribunal remains dogged by delays and funding issues.
On Thursday the court announced that it would ask donors -- Japan, Australia and several Western nations -- to triple its 56.3-million-dollar budget so that it could continue to work for two years past its scheduled 2009 end date.
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