Prosecutors give summation at trial of Khmer Rouge leaders
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Prosecutors at the trial in Cambodia of the surviving top leaders of the former Khmer Rouge regime have begun summing up their case, declaring that despite the defendants’ denials, the evidence clearly showed they knew of the suffering and deaths of their countrymen.
Khieu Samphan, the regime’s 85-year-old former head of state, and 90-year-old Nuon Chea, right-hand man to the group’s late chief, Pol Pot, are being tried on charges including genocide, rape and murder.
The Khmer Rouge’s brutal policies during the regime’s 1975-79 reign are blamed for the deaths of 1.7 million Cambodians from execution, starvation and inadequate medical care.
Co-prosecutor Chea Leang on Wednesday described Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge as a “slave state” in which everyone had to toil on huge infrastructure projects or in the rice fields from before dawn until well into the night, and any attempt at escape was punished by death.