Dutch war crime lawyer joins team to defend detained Khmer Rouge leader Nuon Chea

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia: A Dutch war crimes lawyer has joined the defense team of one of the top leaders of the brutal Khmer Rouge regime ahead of his trial by Cambodia's U.N.-backed genocide tribunal, the lawyer said in a statement.

Michiel Pestman said he would be defending Khmer Rouge ideologist Nuon Chea alongside his Cambodian lawyer, Son Arun.

"I will do everything that I can to ensure that our client receives a fair trial. It is essential that he has a proper defense," Pestman said in the statement, issued by the tribunal.

Nuon Chea, 81, also was known as "Brother No. 2," reflecting his position as right-hand man to Pol Pot, the late leader of the Khmer Rouge.

The group's radical policies when it held power from 1975 to 1979 caused the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people from starvation, overwork, disease and execution.

Nuon Chea is the highest-ranking Khmer Rouge leader detained by the U.N.-supported Cambodian tribunal aimed at seeking justice for the Khmer Rouge crimes.

Nuon Chea has denied any guilt, but the tribunal has charged him with crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Pestman is a partner at the law firm of Boehler Franken Koppe Wijngaarden in Amsterdam, the tribunal said, adding that his domestic experience included defending those accused of terrorism and other serious criminal offenses in Europe and elsewhere.

From 1993-2001, he was a member of a team representing defendants from Bosnia and Herzegovina at the genocide trials at the International Court of Justice. Since 2003, he has represented a war crimes defendant before the Special Court for Sierra Leone in the trial against government militia leaders, according to the statement.

Nuon Chea is one of two defendants indicted so far before the tribunal

Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, who headed the former Khmer Rouge S-21 torture center, was charged on July 31 with crimes against humanity. Prosecutors have recommended three other suspects be indicted, but have not named them publicly.

Both Duch and Nuon Chea have appealed their pre-trial detention orders.