BANGKOK (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 20th August, 2021) The Cambodian court said on Thursday that it may announce its decision on an appeal against the life sentence for 90-years-old Khieu Samphan, the ex-Cambodian leader and the last living member of the Khmer Rouge movement's leadership, in six months.
On Monday, the court started four-day hearings on the appeal filed by Samphan's defense, according to which the life sentence should be annulled as the defendant is old and "had a minor role to play in the Khmer Rouge regime."
"I do not know the exact date when the decision on the appeal will be announced. However, I suppose that this could happen not earlier than six months," Chea Leang, a state co-prosecutor, said as quoted by Cambodian newspaper Phnom Penh Post.
In 2018, Samphan, also called "Brother Number Five" in the Khmer Rouge's hierarchy, was sentenced to life in prison for crimes against humanity, the genocide of ethnic Vietnamese people living in Cambodia and war crimes. He is also well-known for his persecution policy of Cambodian intellectuals that resulted in the death of thousands of them during the Khmer Rouge's rule.
The radical left-wing Khmer Rouge movement, led by Pol Pot, seized power in Cambodia in 1975 after years of guerrilla warfare. Over three years, the Khmer Rouge dictatorship eliminated up to 2 million people, including ethnic minorities and religious groups as the movement enforced a state atheism policy. After the regime was ousted in 1979, Pol Pot hid in jungles with the remnants of his movement and died from cancer in 1998.
