Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge leader ruled unfit for trial

PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA: One of the leaders of the former Khmer Rouge regime will be set free after a court in Cambodia ruled yesterday that she was medically unfit to stand trial for genocide, a decision survivors called shocking and unjust.
Cambodia’s UN-backed tribunal issued a statement saying that 80-year-old Ieng Thirith suffers from a progressive, degenerative illness that is likely Alzheimer’s disease and which diminishes her mental capacity.
“There is no prospect that the accused can be tried in the foreseeable future,” the tribunal said. “Experts have confirmed that all treatment options have now been exhausted and that the accused’s cognitive impairment is likely irreversible.”
She is “unfit to stand trial,” the statement said. The decision upheld an earlier ruling that was put on hold pending the opinion of medical experts.
A tribunal spokesman, Neth Pheaktra, said Ieng Thirith would be freed today from the tribunal’s detention facility if prosecutors do not appeal.
Ieng Thirith was the Khmer Rouge’s minister for social affairs and the regime’s most senior-ranking woman. She also was the sister-in-law of late Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot. She is accused of involvement in the “planning, direction, coordination and ordering of widespread purges,” and was charged with crimes against humanity, genocide, homicide, torture and religious persecution.
Ieng Thirith has said that the charges against her are “100 percent false” and that she always worked for the benefit of the people.
The UN-backed tribunal is seeking justice for an estimated 1.7 million people who died of starvation, exhaustion, lack of medical care or execution during the communist Khmer Rouge’s 1975-79 rule.

Three other senior leaders are currently on trial, including Ieng Thirith’s husband, 86-year-old Ieng Sary, the regime’s former foreign minister. Also on trial are 85-year-old Nuon Chea, the Khmer Rouge’s chief ideologist and No. 2 leader behind the late Pol Pot, and 80-year-old Khieu Samphan, a former head of state.