Cambodia War Crimes Court Hears Evidence in Genocide Case

The U.N.-backed war crimes court trying the two surviving leaders of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge regime heard its first day of evidence on Monday on the charge of genocide.

The tribunal last year found Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea, the two former leaders, guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity, a ruling that both men have appealed.

Monday’s hearing marks the presentation of evidence in the prosecution’s effort to prove the much more difficult charge of genocide – the first time in the court’s nine-year history that it is hearing testimony on that alleged crime.

But the charge of genocide does not refer to the mass killings of ordinary Cambodians, the ethnic Khmer who constitute the majority of the country’s population during the Khmer Rouge’s brutal 1975-79 rule, and who comprised the majority of its victims.

Minority groups

Instead it relates specifically to the regime’s actions against two minority groups: ethnic Cham Muslims and ethnic Vietnamese.

Lars Olsen, the tribunal’s legal officer, said, “The reason the genocide charges are limited to these two groups is basically because the legal definition of genocide is different from what many people would regard as genocide.”

Simply put, Olsen said, genocide refers to having the intention to eliminate in part, or in full, a group of people based on their race, religion, ethnicity or nationality.

Full story: http://www.voanews.com/content/cambodia-war-crimes-court-hears-evidence-in-genocide-case/2950711.html

--VOA News