Two senior leaders of the Khmer Rouge were sentenced to life in prison on war crimes charges for their role in Cambodia’s terror period in the 1970s.

Four now old and infirm members of the Khmer Rouge's ruling elite were facing a war crimes tribunal today, decades after their plans for a Communist Party utopia in Cambodia killed around 1.7 million people by execution, medical neglect, overwork and starvation.

Cambodia’s genocide tribunal charged the former chief of a Khmer Rouge torture centre with crimes against humanity today, marking the court’s first indictment against a leader of the communist group believed responsible for the deaths of 1.7 million people.

Prosecutors for an international tribunal reviewing genocide in Cambodia in the 1970s submitted a list yesterday of former top Khmer Rouge leaders they say should stand trial.