CAMBODIA: Khmer Rouge foreign minister Ieng Sary faces "Killing Fields" arrest

Cambodian police enter the home of former Khmer Rouge Foreign Minister Ieng Sary in an apparent bid to arrest him and put him on trial before a UN-backed genocide tribunal. Police entered the home of former Khmer Rouge Foreign Minister Ieng Sary on Monday (November 12) in an apparent bid to arrest him as part of a campaign to bring leaders of the regime in front of a United Nations-backed genocide tribunal. Rifle-toting police and foreign security guards from Cambodia's "Killing Fields" tribunal surrounded Sary's home as a foreign official outside his Phnom Penh villa said he would be arrested, although a court spokesman declined to confirm it. Police convoys then left his house. A spokesman for the Khmer Rouge Tribunal later confirmed that justice police were among those who carried out the arrest. "We know that the co-prosecutors have sent out orders for the first five people to be questioned and so far there are four here. Those who carried out the work at the house are justice policemen from the ministry of interior, military police and the local authority," spokesman Reach Sambath said. Sary was the international face of the Khmer Rouge during its four-year reign of terror from 1975-79. Not only a former foreign minister, Sary is also regime leader Pol Pot's brother-in-law. He became the first senior Khmer Rouge leader to defect in 1996 which later led to him being granted a royal pardon for a 1979 genocide conviction. Despite repeatedly denying responsibility for any atrocities committed under the Khmer Rouge rule in the 1970s, the 78-year-old is believed to be investigated for involvement in crimes under the regime. The genocide tribunal began in 2006 after years of negotiations between the Cambodian leadership and the United Nations to finalise the course of judicial action to be taken. An estimated 1.7 million people were executed or died of torture, disease or starvation under the ultra-Maoist revolution. ENDS.

ITN Source | November 12, 2007

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