Top former Khmer Rouge leader arrested in Cambodia

PAILIN – Nuon Chea, the top surviving leader of Cambodia’s notorious Khmer Rouge, whose radical policies were responsible for the deaths of an estimated 1,7 million people, was arrested yesterday and put in the custody of an UN-supported genocide tribunal.

Police surrounded his home in Pailin in northwestern Cambodia near the Thai border and served him with an arrest warrant in connection with atrocities carried out by the communist group when it held power in the late 1970s. Officers later took the 82-year-old Nuon Chea – who denies any wrongdoing – into custody and put him into a car and then a helicopter for the capital, Phnom Penh, as his son and dozens of onlookers gathered to watch the historic scene in silence, witnesses said.”My father is happy to shed light on the Khmer Rouge regime for the world and people to understand,” Nuon Say said afterward.Nuon Say said his mother fainted after seeing her husband taken away by police.He said Nuon Chea rolled down the window of the car and took one last look at his son, and said nothing.In Phnom Penh, a convoy transported Nuon Chea from a military airport in the capital to the offices of the tribunal, officially known as the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia.”An initial appearance will be held today during which he will informed of the charges which have been brought against him,” the tribunal said in a statement.”Now the time has come for him to share his version of the history of Khmer Rouge before the court of law,” Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Centre of Cambodia, an independent group researching Khmer Rouge crimes, said yesterday.”So many people have died.The facts are everywhere.There are plenty of mass graves, prisons, documents, photographs that can show what he did at that time,” Youk Chhang 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.Prosecutors for the UN-backed genocide tribunal have said there are five senior Khmer Rouge figures they have recommended for trial in connection with the group’s policies causing people’s deaths through hunger, illnesses, overwork and execution.Nuon Chea is the second, and highest-ranking, Khmer Rouge leader detained to appear before the panel.Nampa- APOfficers later took the 82-year-old Nuon Chea – who denies any wrongdoing – into custody and put him into a car and then a helicopter for the capital, Phnom Penh, as his son and dozens of onlookers gathered to watch the historic scene in silence, witnesses said.”My father is happy to shed light on the Khmer Rouge regime for the world and people to understand,” Nuon Say said afterward.Nuon Say said his mother fainted after seeing her husband taken away by police.He said Nuon Chea rolled down the window of the car and took one last look at his son, and said nothing.In Phnom Penh, a convoy transported Nuon Chea from a military airport in the capital to the offices of the tribunal, officially known as the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia.”An initial appearance will be held today during which he will informed of the charges which have been brought against him,” the tribunal said in a statement.”Now the time has come for him to share his version of the history of Khmer Rouge before the court of law,” Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Centre of Cambodia, an independent group researching Khmer Rouge crimes, said yesterday.”So many people have died.The facts are everywhere.There are plenty of mass graves, prisons, documents, photographs that can show what he did at that time,” Youk Chhang 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.Prosecutors for the UN-backed genocide tribunal have said there are five senior Khmer Rouge figures they have recommended for trial in connection with the group’s policies causing people’s deaths through hunger, illnesses, overwork and execution.Nuon Chea is the second, and highest-ranking, Khmer Rouge leader detained to appear before the panel.Nampa- AP