Bias charges rejected in Khmer Rouge trial

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:14:38 GMT

by: presstv.ir

Ieng Sary, the Khmer Rouge's foreign minister

A UN-backed Cambodian tribunal has refused to look into allegations that its judges are biased against a former communist leader.

The court, on Monday, denounced as "inadmissible" claims that the justices had to be examined for the unfair trial of former foreign minister and war crime suspect Ieng Sary, reported the AFP.

Sary's lawyers had laid the claim against the Dutch judge Katinka Lahuis and the Australian judge Rowan Downing, alluding to remarks by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen.

Sen had alleged that "some foreign judges and prosecutors have received orders from their governments to create problems here."

"A charge of partiality must be supported by a factual basis,” responded the court, however. “The mere fact that a judge has been subjected to press criticism does not require the judge's disqualification."

Jointly formed by Phnom Penh and the United Nations in 2006, the court is currently dealing with charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity against the 83-year-old Sary and four other allegedly genocidal former leaders.

The leaders of the 1975-79 Khmer Rouge regime are accused of eliminating up to two million of their alleged opponents through execution, torture, starvation and forced labor.

The court, unauthorized to impose the death penalty, could sentence the suspects to life terms. Also on trial, the head of the Khmer Rouge's infamous Tuol Sleng (S-21) prison camp could receive a 40-year sentence.

HN/MB

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