Surviving leaders of Khmer Rouge face genocide trial

The four surviving leaders of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge were today ordered to stand trial for genocide.

The defendants, all octogenarians, deny any guilt for their roles in the communist regime which is blamed for more than 1.7 million deaths in the Seventies from starvation, overwork or execution.

The trial, due to start by the middle of next year, will bring to the stand Nuon Chea, 84, the group's ideologist; former head of state and public face of the regime Khieu Samphan, 79; former foreign minister Ieng Sary; and his wife Ieng Thirith, ex-minister for social affairs.

Each faces four charges: crimes against humanity, genocide, war crimes and a combined charge of murder, torture and religious persecution, judge You Bunleng said at the United Nations-backed tribunal in Phnom Penh.

In July the Khmer Rouge's chief jailer, Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, was sentenced to 35 years in jail for war crimes, crimes against humanity, torture and murder. Duch, 67, supervised the S-21 prison where 16,000 people were tortured before being executed. He could be free within 19 years because of time served, and many Cambodians said the sentence was too lenient.

Observers say making a convincing case against the four Khmer Rouge chiefs could prove difficult as current Cambodian leaders were once part of the regime themselves.

Their case file contains 350,000 pages including 11,600 documents and more than 1,000 written records of interviews.

Between 1975 and 1979 towns and cities were depopulated in a disastrous agrarian experiment that shunned technology and persecuted the educated classes. Opponents of the regime, even within its own ranks, were executed.