Khmer Rouge ‘not bad’, says Pol Pot ally

THE Khmer Rouge were not “bad people”, the regime’s highest-ranking surviving member said as Cambodia’s UN-backed war crimes tribunal began hearing evidence in a long-awaited atrocities trial.

“Brother Number Two” Nuon Chea, seen as the chief ideologue of the brutal 1970s movement, was the first of three accused to face questioning from judges in the proceedings.

The trial is seen as vital to finding some justice over the country’s “Killing Fields” era when up to two million people died. Hundreds of Cambodians packed the Phnom Penh courtroom to see Nuon Chea in the dock.