Failure to Confirm Stalls Tribunal

A foreign tourist takes photos of skulls of Khmer Rouge victims displayed at the Choeung Ek killing fields memorial in Phnom Penh, May 4, 2011

Reported by Richard Finney
12th January 2012
AFP

The Cambodian government sits on a UN request to confirm a replacement judge at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal.

The United Nations and nongovernmental groups have taken Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen’s administration to task for delaying the confirmation of a U.N.-appointed judge to the Khmer Rouge Tribunal amid charges that the government does not want the trial to go forward.

The Open Society Justice Initiative, a New York-based group which has been monitoring the tribunal proceedings since they began in 2007, said the delay in confirming Swiss reserve judge Laurent Kasper-Ansermet has stifled proceedings against defendants accused of genocide under the murderous Khmer Rouge regime, which ruled Cambodia from 1975-79.