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Khieu Samphan was one of only three people convicted of the brutal rule of the organization, during which about 2 million people died.
Cambodia’s last surviving senior Khmer Rouge leader, Qiao Samphan, has begun an appeal against the crime of genocide he committed during the ruling Cambodian brutal regime more than 40 years ago.
Ninety-year-old Qiao Samphan is the head of state of the Khmer Rouge.he is is convicted In 2018, a UN-backed court charged a small number of Vietnamese people with genocide.
His lawyers argued on Monday that the arbitral tribunal adopted a “selective approach” to the witness’s testimony and did not pay due attention to evidence in his favor.
They also stated that the court convicted him using legal standards that he did not know when the suspected crime occurred.
The Khmer Rouge led by Pol Pot, known as “Brother No. 1,” Control of Cambodia in 1975Approximately 2 million Cambodians died during their four years in power, during which time they tried to turn the country into an agricultural utopia.
Qiao Samphan and “Brother No. 2” Nong Chea were sentenced to life imprisonment for genocide and a series of other crimes (including forced marriage and rape). Nong Xie passed away in 2019.
In April 1975, the Khmer Rouge army drove the residents of the capital into a rural labor camp. The two were violently evacuated from Phnom Penh and were sentenced to life imprisonment by the court for crimes against humanity in 2014.
According to a court official, a special court hearing in Phnom Penh will last until Thursday, and it is expected that Qiao Samphan will appear in court at the end of the appeal hearing.
At the end of the 2017 genocide trial, he angrily addressed the court, denying the accusations against him, and rejected the label of “murderer” in a strong concluding statement.
Qiao Samphan is one of the few public faces of the Khmer Rouge head of state. He claims that he is not part of the killing machine that killed nearly a quarter of Cambodia’s population.
He denied responsibility for the mass murders and other abuses against Cham Muslims and Vietnamese. During the three-year trial, more than 100 witnesses described these events in detail.
Pol Pot died in 1998 without facing trial.
Former Khmer Rouge Foreign Minister Insali and his wife also died before being tried.
The hybrid court was established in 2006 with the support of the United Nations to try senior Khmer Rouge leaders.
So far, it has convicted only three people and cost more than 300 million U.S. dollars.
Hun Sen, a former member of the Khmer Rouge, opposes any further cases, claiming that this will cause instability.
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