By Lauren Crothers
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia
A mammoth war crimes trial against two surviving senior leaders of the Khmer Rouge regime - during which around 1.7 million people died - will continue next month, a Cambodian tribunal announced Friday.
A five-person panel of judges said evidentiary hearings in the trial’s second phase would begin October 17, according to a scheduling order posted on the website of the United Nations-backed Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) - set up to try key leaders of the ultra-Maoist regime who were in charge from 1975 to 1979.
The first witnesses are expected to be called to appear at the court
October 20 for Case 002/02, as it is known, the order said.
In November 2011, the size of the indictment and the age of the defendants - former “Brother Number 2,” 88-year-old Nuon Chea, and former Khmer Rouge head of state, 83-year-old Khieu Samphan – had led judges to decide to split the case into several smaller trials in order to make it more manageable.
The first portion of the trial, known as Case 002/01, dealt primarily with the 1975 evacuation of capital Phnom Penh when the sick were forced out of hospitals, and children and the elderly forced to walk long distances to join cooperatives in the countryside - thousands of people died on the journey.
Also focusing on the execution of soldiers and officials from the overthrown Lon Nol regime, it wrapped up last October.
When the trial began in late 2011, there were four defendants in the dock - Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan, former Khmer Rouge foreign minister Ieng Sary and his wife, former Khmer Rouge social affairs minister Ieng Thirith. Regime leader Pol Pot died before he could be tried.
Ieng Thirith was found unfit to stand trial and released in 2012 due to worsening dementia, while Ieng Sary died in March 2013.
In August, the court found the surviving defendants guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced them both to life in prison.
The scope of the trial’s next phase is significantly broader, dealing with criminal accusations of rape, the genocide of the Cham Muslim and ethnic Vietnamese minority groups, and internal purges.
It will also include a number of crime sites, including the notorious S-21 prison, a dam worksite known as Trapeang Thma, the Tram Kok cooperative and the Kompong Chhnang Airport construction site.
The genocide charges relate to the treatment of Vietnamese and Cham Muslims during the three years, eight months and 20 days that the regime held power and sought to fulfill a radical agrarian dream across the country.
The defense team for Khieu Samphan had argued that the second phase of the trial should not begin until a final judgment, as rendered by the Supreme Court Chamber in the wake of appeals, is given in the first.
That request has been rejected by the Trial Chamber judges.
However, many Cambodians have already lost faith in the court process, which has been sluggish and also marred by allegations of government interference.
Many officials in Cambodia's current government, were lower ranking Khmer Rouge cadre before they defected to join with Vietnamese forces and overthrow the regime in 1979. Prime Minister Hun Sen was himself a Khmer Rouge soldier.
The government has repeatedly said that two other cases being prepared by the court against senior military cadre will not be allowed to go ahead—and two investigating judges from the UN-side of the hybrid court have quit their posts over what they said was government interference in the process.
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