By Puy Kea
PHNOM PENH , April 23 KYODO -- A U.N.-backed Khmer Rouge tribunal postponed a hearing Wednesday on the former Khmer Rouge head of state's request for bail, citing a controversy over language. Chea Leang, co-prosecutor of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, told reporters the court put the hearing off, but no new date has yet been set. She said the judges in the pre-trial chamber made the decision after Jacques Verges, a French lawyer for Khieu Samphan, made an argument about foreign language difficulties. Verges, 83, made his reputation defending some of the world's most notorious figures, including former-Gestapo chief Klaus Barbie and terrorist Carlos the Jackal. He argued that 16,000 pages of court documents have yet to be translated from Khmer into French, making it hard for him to study the charges and defend his client. Verges appeared angered and told reporters any hearing against his client must be ''null'' as long as the documents are not translated into French, one of the ECCC's official languages. Chea Leang admitted the lack of translations, but she said Verges should not use that as a tool in arguing for bail. ''This is a case of an appeal for release on bail. It's not the evidence bearing on the charges against his client,'' she said, adding that even if he wanted to use that argument he ''should have complained prior to the hearing.'' The United Nations and Cambodia agreed that Khmer, English and French shall be used as official languages for the ECCC. Verges, who arrived in Cambodia on Monday, said he will file a suit with the United Nations and the administration in France charging French was ignored or discriminated against by the U.N.-backed court. Verges also expressed his anger over the court's judges who had asked Khieu Samphan to change his lawyer. He said it was the first time in more than 50 years ''wearing his advocate's robe'' to be asked by the court to get ''changed'' through his own client. Khieu Samphan, 76, nominal head of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia in the late 1970s, was charged in November last year with crimes against humanity and war crimes by the ECCC. The court ordered his provisional detention at the ECCC facilities since then. The court has, so far, dismissed appeals for bail by two of the five suspects who are presently in provisional detention. Those appeals were mounted by Nuon Chea, better known as the Khmer Rouge's Brother No. 2, and Kaing Khek Ieu, alias Duch, head of the Tuol Sleng torture center in Phnom Penh . The other two being held are Ieng Sary, who was the regime's foreign minister, and his wife Ieng Thirith, who was its social affairs minister. The Khmer Rouge is blamed for the deaths of at least 1.7 million Cambodians during their rule from 1975 to 1979.
KyodoApril 23, 2008
0 comments:
Post a Comment