Khmer Rouge genocide trial resumes

Former leaders of the Khmer Rouge - Nuon Chea, 88, aka. "Brother Number Two," and Khieu Samphan, 83, ex-head of state - appeared in court in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on Friday for their second trial.

The trial, which began in July, focuses on a broader scope of charges related to genocide, rape, forced marriage, purges and a slew of other crimes.

A court spokesman has said the trial could go on until 2016. The prosecution's first witness, who was originally scheduled to be called to stand on Monday, will appear in court on October 27.

"The accused will now face trial for the biggest crimes for which they have been indicted," said prosecutor Chea Leang in an opening statement. "This court cannot be closed until justice is done for the victims of these crimes."

'Fairytale' trial

As around 300 demonstrators gathered outside the courthouse on Friday to demand compensation for the time they suffered under the murderous regime, Nuon Chea spoke in court for the first time since he was convicted in August.

"You presented a story that was simple but ultimately just a child's fairytale…you made a bitterly disappointing mockery of justice," he told the UN-backed tribunal. He also called on his defense team to boycott further hearings and demanded the judges be disqualified.

Convicted in separate trial

The two were found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to life imprisonment in a separate, two-year trial in August. Both have appealed their sentences.

August's ruling was the first to bring justice to top figures of the Khmer Rouge regime, which was in power between 1975 and 1979 and was responsible for the deaths of up to two million Cambodians, or one fourth of the population at the time.

Most of the charges against Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan in the second trial, for the deaths of up to two million Cambodians through starvation, overwork or execution during the communist regime, do not fall under the charge of genocide, which is defined by the United Nations as "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group."

"We want justice, and this justice is not even for us who have survived the Khmer Rouge genocide, but it is for our children and many generations to come. This justice would help to prevent genocide to happen again here and elsewhere," said Youk Chhang, head of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, which has collected more than a million documents on the Khmer Rouge terror.

"Without a second trial, there would be an enormous gap in the legal record about crimes that defined the experience of - and still traumatize - regime survivors," said Anne Heindel, an adviser to the Documentation Center of Cambodia.

"The accused will now face trial for the biggest crimes for which they have been indicted," said prosecutor Chea Leang. "This court cannot be closed until justice is done for the victims of these crimes.

Failed cases

The trial was split into a number of smaller cases, due to the vast scope of the charges and the defendants' old age.

In 2011, the tribunal sentenced head of the S-21 torture center, Kaing Guek Eav - alias Duch - to life imprisonment for overseeing the deaths of 15,000 people. But others have had to be stayed due to death or ill health of those on trial.

Ieng Sary, the Khmer Rouge's foreign minister and one of the regime's most powerful leaders died on trial in March 2013. He was ranked third in the hierarchy and was the brother-in-law of the movement's leader Pol Pot. His wife, the regime's social affairs minister, was deemed medically unfit for trial in 2012 after being diagnosed with dementia.

An estimated 1.7 million Cambodians died of starvation, exhaustion and execution, during the regime's three years, eight months and 20 days in power.

After taking over Phnom Penh in April 1975, the Khmer Rouge sought to install a Maoist-inspired agrarian society by forcing millions into forced labor. To create its collectives and dissolve any sense of ownership or family ties, the regime virtually reconstructed the whole of society as they saw fit. Most of the population was expropriated and forced from their homes. Thousands of people were forced into arranged marriages.

The regime's leader Pol Pot lived in near freedom in Cambodia until his death in 1998 at the age of 73. He had, however, been sentenced to death in absentia in the 1980s, and after a show trial, staged by his former allies in 1997, he was sentenced to life long house arrest.

sb/ksb (AP, AFP)