Phnom Penh (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Survivors of Cambodia's brutal Khmer Rouge regime have been able to testify for the first time against one of those responsible for the genocide that cost two million lives.
Speaking before the UN-backed court, survivors addressed the UN-backed genocide court that is trying Nuon Chea, the regime’s ‘Brother Number Two.’
Pol Pot's former deputy, who is in his eighties now but was the regime’s chief ideologue, is the most senior leader still living from a bloody regime that was responsible for the death of 20 per cent of the Cambodian population between 1975 and 1979.
A panel of UN-backed Cambodian and international judges makes up the tribunal which has charged him with crimes against humanity.
He is applying for bail and today’s hearing is to determine whether it should be granted or not.
Theary Seng is a civil party to the case. She told the panel that she was arrested when she was seven along with her younger brother and her parents, who are now dead.
“We were not informed of our rights. There was no due process and we were arrested arbitrarily,” she said. “They treated us inhumanely—for us, the graveyard was our playground.”