A UN-backed war crimes tribunal has found the Khmer Rouge’s Brother No 2 Nuon Chea and former head of state Khieu Samphan guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced the two elderly men to life imprisonment, in a move heralded by human rights groups as a “historic victory” for the nation.
The verdict comes nearly 40 years after the regime led by Pol Pot ended its murderous four-year reign over Cambodia, during which time nearly 2 million people – a quarter of the population – died from starvation, exhaustion, execution or lack of medical care as a result of the communist “utopia” experiment.
Khieu Samphan, 83, known as “Mr Clean” for his reported incorruptibility, and Nuon Chea, 88, the Khmer Rouge’s chief ideologue, were both charged with crimes against humanity, homicide, torture, genocide and religious persecution, all committed during a regime that forced Cambodia into “a state of terror”, according to the tribunal’s chief judge Nil Nonn.
The defendants, both of whom have been in hospital at times since the trial began in November 2011, were described by prosecutor William Smith as “dictators who controlled Cambodians by brutal force and fear”.
“They brutalised and dehumanised their own people and kept spilling blood for power,” he said.
Lawyers for the two said they would appeal.
Both men denied the allegations against them, although Khieu Samphan did admit that mass killings took place – blaming Pol Pot’s extreme brand of communism. In closing statements last year to the court, formally known as the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, he described himself as a state figurehead who “did not have any power” and did not order any executions, calling the allegations a “fairytale”.
“It is easy to say that I should have known everything, I should have understood everything, and thus I could have intervened or rectified the situation at the time,” he said. “Do you really think that that was what I wanted to happen to my people?”
Nuon Chea, who often appeared in court in his trademark wraparound sunglasses, accepted “moral responsibility” for the deaths of nearly 2 million people but claimed total innocence of all crimes charged against him.
In a statement read out to the court in 2013, he said he never ordered soldiers “to mistreat or kill people, to deprive them of food, or commit any genocide”, but added: “I would like to sincerely apologise to the public, the victims, the families, and all Cambodian people. I wish to show my remorse and pray for the lost souls.”
The tribunal, launched in 2006 and once heralded as a great opportunity for Cambodia to confront its bloody past, has been bogged down by allegations of corruption and incompetence, spending up to the present day some $200m to convict only one defendant: the Khmer Rouge prison director Kaing Guek Eav, sentenced to life imprisonment in 2011.
Illness and death have prevented other defendants from standing trial. Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, who both face an upcoming genocide trial, originally shared the dock with Khmer Rouge foreign minister Ieng Sary, who died in March, and his wife Ieng Thirith, the social affairs minister, who has dementia and was declared unfit for trial in 2012. The group’s top leader, Pol Pot, died in 1998.
Despite the problems that have plagued the court, Lars Olsen, the court’s spokesman, called the verdict “a historic day” for both the people and legal system of Cambodia.
“The victims have waited 35 years for legal accountability, and now that the tribunal has rendered a judgment, it is a clear milestone.”
A group of 10 victims represented by the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) praised the court’s decision, saying: “We will finally be able to mourn our relatives. It was important for us to see those who planned and ordered these crimes be held to account.”
But lawyers for the two defendants said they would appeal against the verdict and sentence.
“It is unjust for my client – he did not know [of] or commit many of these crimes,” said Son Arun, a lawyer for Nuon Chea.
Khieu Samphan’s lawyer Kong Sam Onn added simply: “This is not justice.”
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