By Lauren Crothers
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia
Lawyers for two elderly Khmer Rouge leaders, convicted of crimes against humanity and facing genocide charges in a Cambodian court, were warned Friday about their conduct.
Representatives for Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan were given an official misconduct warning after threatening to boycott proceedings and missing a trial management meeting.
Trial Chamber President Nil Nonn said the defense teams had violated a “direct order” by judges to attend the trial management meeting Oct. 21, four days after they walked out of court.
Lawyers for Samphan, 83, had asked for more resources while 88-year-old Nuon’s legal team wanted the judges disqualified amid fears the former Khmer Rouge ideologue would not get a fair trial.
In missing the meeting, Judge Nonn said the lawyers’ behavior “amounts to an obstruction of proceedings” and ordered them to appear before him Tuesday next week for a second trial management meeting.
The case is examining a raft of allegations including internal purges, rape and genocide. Hearings were due to continue Monday but have been cancelled until further notice.
In August, Chea and Samphan were sentenced to life imprisonment for crimes against humanity.
The second phase of the case against the Pol Pot regime’s surviving leaders focuses on charges of genocide against Cham Muslims and ethnic Vietnamese, as well as allegations of rape and forced marriage.
Arthur Vercken, one of Samphan’s international lawyers, had not heard about the announcement when contacted by an Anadolu Agency correspondent by telephone but expressed dismay at the “incredible” turn of events.
“The main problem for us is that it’s not a question of warning or whatever, it’s about the rights of our client,” he said Friday.
“We are defending a person accused of the heaviest crimes in the world and they just condemned him to a life sentence and they are asking us to leave the work of appeal of this condemnation verdict to come to court for a trial,” he said.
“It’s obvious our client, who is the main concern in this, how can he cut himself in two pieces? How can a guy who is 83 work… in the court and work on the appeal?”
He said the rest of his colleagues would deliberate on whether to appear before the judges as ordered.
Chea’s international lawyer Victor Koppe could not be reached.
Lars Olsen, the court’s legal communications officer, said he could not comment on the consequences of the lawyers failing to attend what has been described as their last chance to cooperate with the judges.
“We expect that the defense lawyers will follow the direct order from the Trial Chamber to appear at this hearing and we will therefore not speculate on other hypotheticals,” Olsen said.
The reign of the ultra-Maoist Khmer Rouge, which seized control of Cambodia in 1975 and ruled for four years, resulted in the deaths of around 1.7 million people through execution, starvation and overwork.
Under the communist regime all religion was banned and places of worship and religious documents destroyed.
There were around 200,000 Cham Muslims, originally thought to have from the ancient kingdom of Champa in present Vietnam, when the Khmer Rouge seized power. At least a third were killed during the regime, according to Minority Rights Group International.
Around 400,000 Cham Muslims currently live in Cambodia.
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