Few will face justice, tribunal says
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — The UN-backed Cambodian tribunal trying Khmer Rouge leaders for atrocities committed while they ruled the country acknowledged Monday that only a handful of former high-ranking officials will face justice for their crimes.
The tribunal explained in a statement the dismissal in February of a case against Im Chaem, a middleranking Khmer Rouge district chief whom prosecutors had charged with crimes against humanity, including murder, extermination and enslavement.
The statement said the court’s co-investigating judges concluded that Im Chaem was not high-ranking enough to fall into the category of senior leaders, and she also did not qualify for prosecution as a person “most responsible” for atrocities, because the evidence of specific crimes attributed to her did not meet acceptable legal standards.
It pointed out, however that dismissal of the case against Im Chaem, who is in her seventies, “does not equate to a statement that no crimes were committed by a charged person.”
As a district chief in the northwestern province of Banteay Meanchey, Im Chaem allegedly ran a forced labour camp to construct an irrigation project and was accused of responsibility for the deaths of possibly thousands of labourers.
The tribunal’s statement also said that under the agreement that was negotiated to establish the tribunal, no other Cambodian courts have jurisdiction over human rights violations committed by members of the communist Khmer Rouge, whose harsh 1975-79 rule is considered responsible for the deaths of 1.7 million people from execution, overwork and neglect of medical care.
The absence of an alternative court to try such cases means “only a certain small group of people will ever be prosecuted in the courts of Cambodia for the atrocities” during Khmer Rouge rule, it said.
The agreement to limit such cases to the UN-assisted tribunal “was a conscious political choice during the negotiations, balancing the call for integration of the remaining Khmer Rouge into society against the desire for some form of judicial closure for the horrendous suffering of the victims,” the statement said.
The tribunal has already convicted two high-ranking Khmer Rouge leaders, Khieu Samphan, the 85-year-old Khmer Rouge head of state, and Nuon Chea, the 90-yearold right-hand man to the group’s late top leader, Pol Pot.