Cambodia: Khmer Rouge Couple Decry Charges Against Them As False, Unacceptable

PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA: A couple who belonged to the Khmer Rouge inner circle strongly denied charges lodged against them by Cambodia's U.N.-backed genocide tribunal, a legal document released Thursday (15 Nov) said.

Former Foreign Minister Ieng Sary and his wife, Ieng Thirith, who served as social affairs minister in the 1975-79 Khmer Rouge regime, were arrested Monday (12 Nov) and charged with crimes against humanity. Ieng Sary was also charged with war crimes.

The 1975-79 Khmer Rouge regime was blamed for the deaths of some 1.7 million people from starvation, disease, overwork and execution. None of the group's leaders has yet faced trial.

The couple offered their response to the charges at a Wednesday (14 Nov) hearing where the tribunal judges ordered them to be formally placed in pretrial detention for up to one year.

In the hearing, where they were allowed to present their case against the detention orders, Ieng Sary called the charges against him "unacceptable" and demanded evidence to support them, according to the copy of his detention order released Thursday.

It quoted him saying that he was "very happy that this court has been established because it will be an opportunity for me to discover the truth."

"I would like to know the truth about a dark period in our history. I do not know where the truth lies," he said, although he and his wife were close associates of the late Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot.

The orders said the couple are being prosecuted for supporting Khmer Rouge policy and practice "characterized by murder, extermination, imprisonment, persecution on political grounds and other inhuman acts such as forcible transfers of the population, enslavement and forced labor."

Ieng Thirith described the charge against her as "100 percent false," according to her detention order.

The couple asked not to be detained by the tribunal, citing ill health, but the judges rejected their requests. Ieng Thirith, 75, told the judges that she is chronically ill, physically and mentally.

The order against Ieng Sary, 82, quoted him telling the judges that he is afraid of dying in tribunal detention, and that if he does, "the first victims will be my family."

His plea showed disrespect for the suffering and loss of lives caused by the regime he served, said Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, an independent group collecting evidence of Khmer Rouge atrocities.

"Has he ever tried to understand the pain of millions of lives? He destroyed us while preserving his own, and he continues to do so today," Youk Chhang said angrily.

The U.N.-assisted tribunal was created last year after seven years of contentious negotiations between the United Nations and Cambodia.

The arrests of the Khmer Rouge suspects _ four so far _ come almost three decades after the group fell from power, with many fearing the aging suspects might die before they ever see a courtroom. Trials are expected to begin next year. (By KER MUNTHIT/ AP)