Former Khmer Rouge leader denies role in genocide

PAILIN, Cambodia: The highest-ranking former Khmer Rouge leader still alive denied on Thursday that he was responsible for the deaths of 1.7 million Cambodians during the party's brutal 1975-79 rule, adding that he was ready to face an international tribunal.

Prosecutors in the tribunal examining the deaths submitted a confidential list Wednesday of five former top Khmer Rouge leaders that they believed 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," the former chief Khmer Rouge ideologue, Nuon Chea, said in an interview at his home in northwest Cambodia.

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

"I will go to the court and don't care if people believe me not," Nuon Chea 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?"

Seeming unperturbed, Nuon Chea sat clutching a walking stick, the legacy of a stroke, and complained of pain in his right leg as he spoke, while his wife served homemade iced fruit juice.

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

Now an ailing 82-year-old, the former "Brother Number Two" in the Khmer Rouge has consistently denied any responsibility for the mass brutality that engulfed Cambodia when the Khmer Rouge held power.

"I was president of the National Assembly and had nothing to do with the operation of the government. Sometimes I didn't know what they were doing because I was in the assembly," he said. "I had no intention to kill my people.'

Marcel Lemonde, a tribunal's co-investigating judge who is a native of France, declined to discuss when names of the suspects will be made public and when they might be arrested, though he indicated it could be soon.

A statement from the tribunal said the prosecutors - a joint Cambodian-foreign team - submitted 25 cases to the judges involving "murder, torture, forcible transfer, unlawful detention, forced labor and religious, political and ethnic persecution." All five suspects were senior leaders, it said.

Pol Pot, the late Khmer Rouge leader, died in 1998 and his former military chief, Ta Mok, died in 2006. In addition to Nuon Chea, former Foreign Minister Ieng Sary and the former head of state, Khieu Samphan, live freely in Cambodia but are in declining health. Kaing Khek Iev, who headed the Khmer Rouge's S-21 torture center, is the only former senior official in government custody.

Cambodia first sought help of the United Nations 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.