Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Last Khmer Rouge leaders found guilty
THE last surviving leaders of the Khmer Rouge that brutally ruled Cambodia in the 1970s have been convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes by an international tribunal.
Nuon Chea, 92, and Khieu Samphan, 87, were sentenced to life in prison, the same sentence they are already serving after earlier convictions at a previous trial for crimes against humanity connected with forced transfers and mass disappearances of people.
The verdict read aloud in the courtroom by Judge Nil Nonn established that the Khmer Rouge committed genocide against the Vietnamese and Cham minorities.
Scholars had debated whether suppression of the Chams, a Muslim ethnic group whose members had put up a small but futile resistance against the Khmer Rouge, amounted to genocide.
The court found Khieu Samphan not guilty of genocide against the Cham, for lack of evidence, though he was found guilty of genocide against the Vietnamese under the principle of joint command responsibility.
The Khmer Rouge sought to achieve an agrarian utopia by emptying the cities to establish vast rural communes.