Khmer Rouge leader Nuon Chea will remain in jail pending trial for war crimes allegedly committed during Cambodia's 1970s genocide, the country's UN-backed tribunal ruled yesterday.
A panel of five judges rejected Nuon Chea's appeal for freedom, saying there were "well-founded" reasons to believe he committed the crimes of which he is accused.
"The appeal is dismissed," said Prak Kimsan, chief judge of the court's pre-trial chamber.
PHOTO: AFP
"The grounds for the provisional detention are still satisfied," he said.
The regime's former "Brother No. 2," who is charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity, has denied the accusations against him and claims his arrest last September was an "illegal act."
His defense team had argued that the judges violated legal procedures during their first interviews with Nuon Chea, during which he was without a lawyer because he had mistakenly waived his right to an attorney.
Nuon Chea's Cambodian lawyer, Son Arun, said following the ruling that he "was not satisfied with the decision."
"I had hoped the court could release him, but unluckily no," he said.
"I want Nuon Chea to join his family so that he can be more comfortable," he said, adding that his client's mental and physical health had deteriorated since his arrest.
"His health is weakening and he is forgetting a lot," Son Arun said, adding that he had asked the court to determine whether Nuon Chea would be mentally fit to stand trial.
"In order to conduct this case properly, the court needs to provide better care," he said.
The 81-year-old appeared frail during yesterday's hearing and had to be helped to stand up by courtroom guards.
Nuon Chea is the senior-most of five Khmer Rouge cadres currently detained by the court over their alleged role in one of the 20th century's worst atrocities.
Up to 2 million people died of starvation and overwork, or were executed by the Khmer Rouge, which dismantled modern Cambodian society in its effort to forge a radical agrarian utopia.
Cities were emptied and their populations exiled to vast collective farms, while schools were closed, religion banned and the educated classes targeted for extermination during the communist regime's 1975-1979 rule.
Nuon Chea was the closest deputy of Khmer Rouge supreme leader Pol Pot -- who died in 1998 without ever facing justice -- and was allegedly the architect of the regime's devastating execution policies.
In their detention order issued last year, the tribunal's investigating judges alleged that Nuon Chea had enforced policies "characterized by forcible transfers of the population, enslavement, forced labor and other inhumane acts."
The judges argued that Nuon Chea could intimidate witnesses, destroy evidence or flee the country if he remained free pending trial.
Cambodia's genocide tribunal was convened in 2006 after nearly a decade of fractious talks between the government and the UN over how to prosecute the regime's leadership.
The first public trials are expected later this year.
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