Monday, 15 November 2010 Kong Sothanarith, VOA Khmer | Phnom Penh
Photo: AP Nuon Chea, far right, is expected to see trial for atrocity crimes in early 2011, along with former Khmer Rouge leaders Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary and Ieng Thirith.
The international defense team for Nuon Chea is seeking the urgent intervention of the UN to end what it says is political interference in the defendant’s upcoming trial.
In a letter sent Thursday to UN special rights envoy Surya Subedi and to the special rapporteur on judges and lawyers, Gabriela Carina Knaul de Albuquerque e Silva, defense attorneys said the reticence of six government officials to answer court summonses was harmful to their client.
The defense lawyers, Victor Koppe and Michiel Pestman, said they were making an “urgent appeal” to the government “implement your recommendations with specific reference to the importance of ensuring the integrity of the [tribunal] proceeding.”
Nuon Chea is expected to see trial for atrocity crimes in early 2011, along with three other senior Khmer Rouge leaders now in custody. With the trial fast approaching, the defense said it needed restraint from further interference.
Jasper Pauw, a consultant for Nuon Chea’s team, said there have been “many credible allegations of political interference,” but none of them had yet been recognized by the court.
Neither of the rapporteurs was immediately available for comment, but Pauw said they had acknowledged receipt of the defense request.
Tribunal spokesman Lars Olsen said the special rapporteurs did not have a mandate to intervene, calling the appeal the “job of the defense team.”
“The Khmer Rouge tribunal is independent of the government, of the UN, of the special rapporteur,” Olsen said. “The Khmer Rouge tribunal makes decisions based on the law and nothing else.”
Government spokesman Phay Siphan called the appeal “just an accusation to jeopardized the [next trial's] proceedings.”
Nuon Chea, 84, is charged with war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, for his role in the Khmer Rouge. He is charged alongside former leaders Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary and Ieng Thirith.
In a letter sent Thursday to UN special rights envoy Surya Subedi and to the special rapporteur on judges and lawyers, Gabriela Carina Knaul de Albuquerque e Silva, defense attorneys said the reticence of six government officials to answer court summonses was harmful to their client.
The defense lawyers, Victor Koppe and Michiel Pestman, said they were making an “urgent appeal” to the government “implement your recommendations with specific reference to the importance of ensuring the integrity of the [tribunal] proceeding.”
Nuon Chea is expected to see trial for atrocity crimes in early 2011, along with three other senior Khmer Rouge leaders now in custody. With the trial fast approaching, the defense said it needed restraint from further interference.
Jasper Pauw, a consultant for Nuon Chea’s team, said there have been “many credible allegations of political interference,” but none of them had yet been recognized by the court.
Neither of the rapporteurs was immediately available for comment, but Pauw said they had acknowledged receipt of the defense request.
Tribunal spokesman Lars Olsen said the special rapporteurs did not have a mandate to intervene, calling the appeal the “job of the defense team.”
“The Khmer Rouge tribunal is independent of the government, of the UN, of the special rapporteur,” Olsen said. “The Khmer Rouge tribunal makes decisions based on the law and nothing else.”
Government spokesman Phay Siphan called the appeal “just an accusation to jeopardized the [next trial's] proceedings.”
Nuon Chea, 84, is charged with war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, for his role in the Khmer Rouge. He is charged alongside former leaders Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary and Ieng Thirith.
2 comments:
I really hate these Khmer Rouge Leaders and their clans. They were incapable, irresponsible and led the country to the killing field that make the nation ashame.
I want them to be treated in the prison same as they treated poor Khmer people in Tuol Sleng or other places so they know how cruel they are because they never acknowledge their mistakes and always deny their crime to pretend to be innocent in order to hide their accomplices and their masterminds. All of them need to be brave like they were during their communist activist and admit their faults in front of Khmer people and tell the truth their accomplices and their masterminds to the judge in order to die in peace in the prison.
Say who are your mastermind: China, Viet or America? because you suspected everyone under your regime.I means you do not trust yourself, how you led the whole country without trust and lack of confidence.
You led everyone under your regime living in fears, horrified and left all survivors living in trauma, nightmare and mistrust. Khmer people do not trust each other as results of your devil acts.
You are not human, you were born to be devil. I felt sorry to my older brother and to my parents that they consider and trust Khieu Samphan as intellectual role model for them and for Khmer people. However,he betrayed all of Khmer and was insulted by them.
Go to hell all of devil people.
Film star, playboy king Sihanouk and his plitics of pro communist block is the one to be blamed.
It was Hanoi that stated to turn Cambodia from an island of peace to a killing field. Thousand of Hanoi troops used Cambodia to attack American troops in 1968-69 and the war escalated from then to 1975.It was Hanoi that installed Khmer Rouge regime.Without Hanoi Khmer Rouge was not there to kill. Like today there are Hundred of Hanoi agents working in CPP government and running Cambodian economy.For instance Tea Banh ,Vietcong,runs Cambodian armed forces.Soc Kong, Vietcong,run Cambodian economy and many others.We are still under Hanoi mechanism.
Hanoi also turned Loas too to involve in its stratigy of its expansionism. Withou the collapse of the communist block today Cambodia and Loas would be a countries under direct Hanoi's control.Cambodia today would have been ruled by a second generation of vietnamese born in Cambodia. Hun Sen, Heng Samrin and others could have been discarded by Hanoi by now. This how Hanoi would spin its politics in Cambodia.I really hate all of those Khmer Rouge leaders as much as I hate the CPP leaders,because they are all Hanoi's devices.
Hanoi is the real devil in Cambodian Killing field.
True Khmer
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