PHOMN PEHN, December 17 -- A lawyer representing a Khmer Rouge leader who was sentenced to life imprisonment last month is threatening to seek up to US$1 million in damages over his dismissal by the international tribunal that handed down the sentence. Victor Koppe was dismissed last Thursday on the advice of Cambodia’s bar association, which said that the Dutch national had not been a member of the bar in the Netherlands for nearly three years and should not therefore be practising law in Cambodia. He nonetheless appeared in court on November 16 to witness the verdict against his client, 92-year-old Nuon Chea, for committing crimes against humanity including genocide. It is unclear what effect, if any, Koppe’s dismissal will have on the verdict, which is now at the appeals stage. Britta Boehler, Koppe’s lawyer, claims her client was given permission to appear by the tribunal’s defence section chief Isaac Endeley. In an email addressed to a number of tribunal officials and seen by the Post, Boehler describes Koppe’s dismissal as illegal because Cambodia’s bar association only requires foreign lawyers to be a member of the bar in their home country at the point of registration, not on a continuing basis. She further accused tribunal spokesman Neth Pheaktra of distributing misinformation about the case before suggesting an amount that would be sought in compensation for damages including “punitive damages”. “Mr Koppe reserves the right to seek monetary compensation for all damages incurred or to incur in the future,” she said in the email. “Presently, I estimate the compensatory damages to amount to US $1 million.” Pheaktra, who has dismissed any accusation of wrongdoing, said Koppe’s dismissal was in line with the tribunals “internal rules”. Suon Visal, head of the Cambodian bar association, said Koppe had not been “honest with [the] legal profession as required” in his failure to notify it about his lack of registration in the Netherlands. Visal went on to criticise Endeley, the defence section chief, for not checking the foreign lawyer’s qualifications and allowing Koppe to represent his client despite knowing that he was disbarred. Endeley did immediately respond to requests for comment. The United Nations-backed Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia has spent nine years and more than US$300 million prosecuting the leaders of the country’s Khmer Rouge. Between 1975 and 1979, at least 1.7 million Cambodians – a fifth of the country’s population – lost their lives under the regime. As well as Chea, the tribunal has convicted 87-year-old Khieu Samphan for crimes against humanity and Kaing Guek Eav, former head of the Khmer Rouge prison system.
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PHNOM PENH, November 16 -- Cambodia's Khmer Rouge regime committed "genocide" during its reign of terror from 1975 to 1979, a UN-backed war crimes court said on Friday in an historic ruling.
"Brother Number Two" Nuon Chea, 92, and Khieu Samphan, 87, are the last surviving senior leaders of the communist group that brutally ruled the Southeast Asian nation. The tribunal judging their criminal responsibility for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians also found them guilty of committing crimes against humanity and other breaches of the Geneva Conventions. "The chamber ... finds that the crimes of genocide... were committed" against ethnic Vietnamese and Cham Muslims, presiding judge Nil Nonn said - the first time the court has issued such a ruling. The large crowd of spectators attending the session included members of the Cham, a Muslim ethnic minority. The leaders are already serving life sentences after being convicted in a previous 2011 to 2014 trial of crimes against humanity connected with forced transfers and disappearances of masses of people. The Khmer Rouge sought to achieve an agrarian utopia by emptying the cities to establish vast rural communes. Instead their radical policies led to what has been termed "auto-genocide" through starvation, overwork and execution. Lah Sath, a 72-year-old Cham man from eastern Kampong Cham province, brought his wife and four young granddaughters to the session. He said he often heard people talking about the trial and sometimes watched it on TV, but decided it was time to see it with his own eyes. Just talking about the Khmer Rouge brought back horrible memories of life under their rule, he said. The Cham were treated as enemies and exploited without mercy as they were forced to do intensive farm labour, he recalled. Lah Sath said his younger brother was killed by the Khmer Rouge for failing to take good care of a cow. The tribunal has carried out just one other prosecution resulting in the 2010 conviction of Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch, who as head of the Khmer Rouge prison system ran the infamous Tuol Sleng torture centre in the capital, Phnom Penh. Prime Minister Hun Sen has declared he will allow no further case to go forward, claiming they would cause instability. |
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