Khmer Rouge leader detained

Police in Cambodia detained the top surviving leader of the Khmer Rouge today over his role in the notorious regime that caused the deaths of 1.7 million people in the late 1970s.

Police surrounded Nuon Chea’s home in Pailin in northwestern Cambodia near the Thai border and served him with an arrest warrant on charges of crimes against humanity, police Captain Sem Sophal said.

Officers later took Nuon Chea, who is about 80, into custody and put him on a helicopter heading for the capital, Phnom Penh, as dozens of onlookers gathered to watch the historic scene, witnesses said.

Nuon Chea helped the group’s notorious leader Pol Pot seize control of Cambodia’s communist movement in the 1950s and ’60s and then became the movement’s chief political ideologue during its murderous rule in the 1970s.

“The police have already put him on the helicopter,” said Ou Boran, a grandson of Nuon Chea.

Prosecutors for the UN-backed genocide tribunal investigating crimes by the Khmer Rouge have not publicly named Nuon Chea as a suspect.

But he is believed to be one of five senior Khmer Rouge figures they have recommended for trial before the panel.

He would be the second, and highest-ranking, Khmer Rouge leader detained to appear before the panel.

“There is an order from the top to execute a warrant to take Nuon Chea (into custody) this morning,” Sem Sophal said before Nuon Chea was taken into custody. “All road access to his house have been ordered sealed.”

After numerous delays, the tribunal’s co-investigating judge You Bun Leng and his UN-appointed counterpart, Marcel Lemonde, in July began investigations of former Khmer Rouge leaders accused of crimes against humanity.

Nuon Chea said in July that he is ready to stand trial.

“I will go to the court and don’t care if people believe me or not,” Nuon Chea said.

Reach Sambath, a tribunal spokesman, declined to comment today.

Theary Seng, a Cambodian-American who lost relatives to the Khmer Rouge atrocities, said she was elated by the news of Nuon Chea’s arrest.

“To have another name soon made public and to know that it is Nuon Chea... is very encouraging,” said Theary Seng, the director of Centre for Social Development, a nonprofit group monitoring development of the Khmer Rouge tribunal.

She said Nuon Chea’s arrest was “a very good starting point” and “will definitely increase the engagement of the Cambodian people” who have been waiting to see justice done for so long already.

“Even if we don’t see a conviction, at least we have witnessed a process” of searching for justice, Theary Seng said. 190419 sep

Kaing Guek Eav, commonly known as Duch who headed the former Khmer Rouge S-21 prison, is currently the only senior figure detained by the tribunal on charges of crimes against humanity committed during the Khmer Rouge’s time in power. He was charged last month.

The late Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot died in 1998 and his former military chief, Ta Mok, died in 2006 in government custody.

Their senior-level colleagues, Ieng Sary, the former foreign minister, and Khieu Samphan, the former head of state, live freely in Cambodia but are in declining health. They are also widely believed to be on the prosecutors’ list.