Chea gets top care in jail

PHNOM PENH -The top Khmer Rouge suspect awaiting trial before a UN-backed genocide tribunal will get cable TV and regular visits from doctors while in detention – amenities out of reach for most impoverished Cambodians.

Former Khmer Rouge ideologist Nuon Chea – who is 82 and in declining health from an earlier stroke – was arrested on Wednesday in the northwestern Cambodia and flown to the capital, Phnom Penh, where he was formally charged with crimes against humanity before the tribunal. Nuon Chea spent his first night in a detention cell at the tribunal headquarters on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath said yesterday.”We have been informed by medical doctors and detention guards that he is in good spirits.He is in good health for an elderly person,” he said.”We provide him with the best services we can,” he said, adding that it was important to keep Nuon Chea healthy so that he can face trial.The tribunal is investigating abuses committed when the communist Khmer Rouge held power in 1975-79.The Khmer Rouge’s radical policies have been blamed for the deaths of 1,7 million of their countrymen from starvation, ill health, overwork and execution.The tribunal said in a statement late Wednesday that panel judges put Nuon Chea in ‘provisional detention’ after charging him ‘for crimes against humanity and war crimes’.Nuon Chea has consistently denied any responsibility for the regime’s mass brutality, though he has said he was ready to face the tribunal.He made no comments upon his arrest on Wednesday, but his son indicated that Nuon Chea would cooperate with the panel.”My father is happy to shed light on the Khmer Rouge regime for the world and people to understand,” Nuon Say said.Nuon Chea joined the Khmer Rouge in the 1950s in its formative stages as the country’s underground communist party, later becoming its chief political ideologue and right-hand man to Pol Pot.Nuon Chea is the second, and highest-ranking, Khmer Rouge leader detained to appear before the panel.Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, who headed the former Khmer Rouge S-21 torture centre, was charged on July 31 with crimes against humanity.Prosecutors have recommended three other suspects for trial, but have not named them publicly.Nampa-APNuon Chea spent his first night in a detention cell at the tribunal headquarters on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath said yesterday.”We have been informed by medical doctors and detention guards that he is in good spirits.He is in good health for an elderly person,” he said.”We provide him with the best services we can,” he said, adding that it was important to keep Nuon Chea healthy so that he can face trial.The tribunal is investigating abuses committed when the communist Khmer Rouge held power in 1975-79.The Khmer Rouge’s radical policies have been blamed for the deaths of 1,7 million of their countrymen from starvation, ill health, overwork and execution.The tribunal said in a statement late Wednesday that panel judges put Nuon Chea in ‘provisional detention’ after charging him ‘for crimes against humanity and war crimes’.Nuon Chea has consistently denied any responsibility for the regime’s mass brutality, though he has said he was ready to face the tribunal.He made no comments upon his arrest on Wednesday, but his son indicated that Nuon Chea would cooperate with the panel.”My father is happy to shed light on the Khmer Rouge regime for the world and people to understand,” Nuon Say said.Nuon Chea joined the Khmer Rouge in the 1950s in its formative stages as the country’s underground communist party, later becoming its chief political ideologue and right-hand man to Pol Pot.Nuon Chea is the second, and highest-ranking, Khmer Rouge leader detained to appear before the panel.Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, who headed the former Khmer Rouge S-21 torture centre, was charged on July 31 with crimes against humanity.Prosecutors have recommended three other suspects for trial, but have not named them publicly.Nampa-AP