AP Exclusive: Former Khmer Rouge leader says he is ready to face trial for genocide

PAILIN, Cambodia (AP) - The top surviving leader of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge, accused of genocidal policies that led to the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million of his countrymen, said unhesitatingly Thursday he was ready to be judged by an international tribunal.

«I will go to the court and don't care if people believe me or not,» Nuon Chea, the chief ideologue for the communist Khmer Rouge when they held power in the late 1970s, said in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press.

He spoke a day after prosecutors in the tribunal examining the deaths submitted a confidential list of five former Khmer Rouge leaders they believe should be tried, along with the evidence to back the charges. Judges will decide whether to proceed with indictments.

«They didn't specify the names of the people, but I know I'm included,» Nuon Chea said at his home in northwest Cambodia near the border with Thailand.

Cambodian and international prosecutors submitted evidence including thousands of pages of documentation and the locations of more than 40 mass graves.

Now an ailing 82-year-old, Nuon Chea _ the former «Brother Number Two» in the Khmer Rouge, right-hand man to the group's notorious leader, the late Pol Pot _ has consistently denied any responsibility for the mass brutality.

«I was president of the National Assembly and had nothing to do with the operation of the government,» he said Thursday. «Sometimes I didn't know what they were doing because I was in the assembly.

Cambodian scholars dispute the claim, and believe he was an instrumental policy-maker.

The prosecutors said the acts allegedly carried out by the five unnamed Khmer Rouge leaders «constitute crimes against humanity, genocide, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, homicide, torture and religious persecution.

«I had no intention to kill my people,» said Nuon Chea. «The tribunal shouldn't rely solely on the law but on intention as well.

Former Khmer Rouge leaders have usually denied knowledge of large-scale killings, despite a preponderance of evidence, most dramatically mass graves around the country.

They sometimes blame neighboring Vietnam _ Cambodia's traditional enemy _ for the killings. After a series of bloody border raids by the Khmer Rouge on Vietnamese villages in late 1978, Hanoi invaded Cambodia to oust the Khmer Rouge and install a puppet government, garrisoning the country for about a decade.

«There are two kinds of war, one to protect your country, one where you invade another country,» said Nuon Chea, in apparent reference to the battles with Vietnam. «I was trying to protect my country.

He said there were more police than usual stationed outside his small house since Wednesday evening's announcement of the legal moves in Phnom Penh, and he had to be careful about what he said.

«It happened 30 years ago and it's very difficult to remember. Some of them (tribunal members) never experienced that. They weren't there, how could they know what was going on.

Marcel Lemonde of France, one of the tribunal's co-investigating judges, declined to discuss when the suspects' names would be made public and when they might be arrested, though he indicated it could be soon.

«We are encouraged by the progress of the (tribunal) and look forward to the day when identified suspects are brought to justice,» said U.S. Embassy spokesman Jeff Daigle.

Ros Saroeun, a 53-year-old motorbike-taxi driver, reflected the opinions of many older Cambodians, commenting that «I am delighted they will be brought to trial, because they have caused the death of more than 30 of my relatives.

The late Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot died in 1998 and his former military chief, Ta Mok, died in 2006.

In addition to Nuon Chea, former Foreign Minister Ieng Sary and former head of state Khieu Samphan live freely in Cambodia but are in declining health.

Kaing Khek Iev, also known as Duch, who headed the Khmer Rouge's S-21 torture center, is the only former senior official in government custody.

His lawyer, Ka Savuth, said Thursday that he had been informed that his client was soon to be transferred from a military prison to the detention facility at the tribunal's headquarters, an indirect confirmation that he was one of the five suspects named by prosecutors.

He said Duch «welcomed the news and wished for his trial to take place as quickly as possible.

According to tribunal rules, the maximum penalty for conviction of crimes falling within its jurisdiction is life imprisonment.

Cambodia first sought U.N. help in 1997 to set up a tribunal, but it took years of tough negotiations before the two parties signed a pact in 2003 agreeing to hold trials.

Associated Press writer Ker Munthit in Phnom Penh contributed to this story.