PHNOM PENH — A second lawyer for a former Khmer Rouge leader said Monday he
will seek the removal of the French investigating judge at Cambodia's
UN-backed war crimes court, adding to allegations of bias.
Sa Sovan, who is defending former Khmer Rouge head of state Khieu Samphan,
said he would file a motion later on Monday or Tuesday to seek the removal
of judge Marcel Lemonde for bias in the investigation of his client.
The move follows a similar motion filed last week by the defence team for
former Khmer Rouge foreign minister Ieng Sary, demanding Lemonde be
disqualified from the war crimes court for bias.
"I will file a motion to have such a judge removed because he did not
respect the neutrality in the investigation," said Sa Sovan at the tribunal
set up to try leaders of the brutal late-1970s regime.
The motions are based on a sworn statement by Lemonde's former chief of
intelligence and analysis, alleging the investigating judge told
subordinates to favour evidence showing suspects' guilt over evidence of
their innocence.
"It is unjust, and I am afraid that this will affect my client," Sa Sovan
told AFP, adding that both "black and white" evidence about his client's
role in the regime had to be investigated.
Under the Khmer Rouge court's regulations, investigating judges are required
to be impartial while researching allegations made by prosecutors. Defence
teams are not permitted to make their own investigations.
Speaking on Lemonde's behalf, court spokesman Lars Olsen told AFP Monday
that the judge was "not interested in commenting on the allegations" but
would provide "necessary information" about the issue to the court.
Lemonde is currently investigating the court's second case, against Khieu
Samphan, Ieng Sary and his wife, former minister of social affairs Ieng
Thirith, as well as Khmer Rouge ideologue Nuon Chea.
Final arguments in the court's first trial of prison chief Kaing Guek Eav,
known by the alias Duch, are scheduled for late next month.
Led by Pol Pot, who died in 1998, the Khmer Rouge emptied Cambodia's cities
in a bid to forge a communist utopia between 1975-79, resulting in the
deaths of up to two million people from starvation, overwork and torture.
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About Me
- Duong Dara
- Dara Duong was born in 1971 in Battambang province, Cambodia. His life changed forever at age four, when the Khmer Rouge took over the country in 1975. During the regime that controlled Cambodia from 1975-1979, Dara’s father, grandparents, uncle and aunt were executed, along with almost 3 million other Cambodians. Dara’s mother managed to keep him and his brothers and sisters together and survive the years of the Khmer Rouge regime. However, when the Vietnamese liberated Cambodia, she did not want to live under Communist rule. She fled with her family to a refugee camp on the Cambodian-Thai border, where they lived for more than ten years. Since arriving in the United States, Dara’s goal has been to educate people about the rich Cambodian culture that the Khmer Rouge tried to destroy and about the genocide, so that the world will not stand by and allow such atrocities to occur again. Toward that end, he has created the Cambodian Cultural Museum and Killing Fields Memorial, which began in his garage and is now in White Center, Washington. Dara’s story is one of survival against enormous odds, one of perseverance, one of courage and hope.
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