Phnom Penh (Asianews/Agencies) Cambodia's legislature on Monday approved a long-delayed agreement to put surviving Khmer Rouge leaders on trial for atrocities.
All of the 107 lawmakers who attended the National Assembly session early Monday voted in favour of the pact to establish a U.N.-assisted tribunal. The tribunal will comprise teams of Cambodian and foreign prosecutors and judges, with Cambodians in the majority, and any decisions will require a vote of the majority plus one.
"We have realized today what we have been waiting for a long time already. Ratification has just been passed," Prime Minister Hun Sen told reporters after the vote. "This is a very big outcome the Cambodian people and international community have been waiting for."
After more than five years of talks, Cambodia signed the agreement with the United Nations in June 2003, but ratification of the deal was delayed, largely because the country fear a trial could produce a political crisis. Some of the present leaders in the government had been members of the Khmer Rouges.
The deaths of some 1.7 million Cambodians are attributed to the ultra-communist Khmer Rouge, which ruled from 1975-79. None of the regime's top leaders has been brought to justice. The movement's chief, Pol Pot, died in 1998. Several of his top lieutenants, aging and infirm, still live freely in Cambodia. Ta Mok, the former army chief, and Kaing Khek Iev, the chief interrogator, are the only two senior Khmer Rouge figures currently in detention awaiting trial.