A judge’s decision to set former Khmer Rouge commander Chhouk Rin free has left many wondering how the verdict will affect a trial for other cadre leaders who may be prosecuted for crimes committed during the brutal regime.
The UN and the Cambodian government are working together to finalize plans on a trial for former Khmer Rouge leaders to answer for the more than 1 million lives that were lost during Pol Pot’s rule. A draft law on the trial is being considered by the National Assembly.
The UN has said the Cambodian legal system is not adequate to handle a genocide trial on its own, while government officials have been citing national sovereignty to have control over the tribunal.
“I would have no confidence in any tribunal consisting purely of a Cambodian judiciary,” said William Wodrow, a lawyer for one of the victims’ family in the Chhouk Rin case. “The international community should not be left with any doubt that an external judiciary committee should be forced on the government.”
Municipal Court Judge Thong Ol decided that Chhouk Rin, a former Khmer Rouge commander, could not be found guilty of charges related to a 1994 train ambush that led to the deaths of three Western backpackers.
The judge cited a Khmer Rouge ban passed by parliament on July 7,1994—just a few weeks before the train attack occurred—that said rebel members who defected within six months of the passage of the law were granted immunity from prosecution for crimes committed during their years with the Khmer Rouge.
Chhouk Rin defected to the government in October 1994 and became a colonel in Cambodia’s army. He was arrested in January for his alleged involvement in the train attack.
Yet Chatkriya, the prosecutor in the Chhouk Rin case, said “the law is in effect, so the judge can use this law however he wants.”
But opposition leader Sam Rainsy, who was finance minister in 1994 and participated in the National Assembly debate on the law, said Thong Ol misinterpreted the immunity provision, as it granted amnesty for crimes committed before the law was passed, namely for atrocities that occurred during the Khmer Rouge rule from 1975 to 1979 .
“We did not have the kind of crime that Chhouk Rin committed in mind,” Sam Rainsy said. “This was totally outside our consideration.”
Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, which has been gathering evidence for a Khmer Rouge trial, said the Chhouk Rin verdict sets a bad example for a genocide tribunal.
“This gives people no hope,” he said. “If the court can’t handle this trial when they had the evidence, plaintiffs, everything, how can they handle a bigger trial?”
Although chief of the torture prison Duch and the movement’s military leader Ta Mok—the only rebels who are now in custody awaiting trial for crimes committed during the Khmer Rouge regime—did not defect to the government, many top cadre leaders did. However, many of them defected after the six-month deadline established in the 1994 law.
The UN and the Cambodian government apparently still disagree on whether Ieng Sary, who was the deputy premier of the Khmer Rouge regime and defected in 1996, should be tried for crimes against humanity.
Ieng Sary was granted amnesty by King Norodom Sihanouk after he defected, but the King said at the time the amnesty should not protect Ieng Sary from prosecution in a war crimes trial.
Other high-ranking leaders in the Khmer Rouge regime, such as Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, also defected to the government after the six-month deadline but were not granted amnesty by the King.
Sam Rainsy said the verdict in the Chhouk Rin case gave the public “the first taste of what the future of the Khmer Rouge trial will be.”
“This shows the government will use the anti-Khmer Rouge law to exclude any Khmer Rouge leaders who pledged allegiance to the current Phnom Penh government,” Sam Rainsy said.
Khieu Kanharith, a government and CPP spokesman, said the verdict should serve as a lesson for those involved in finalizing a tribunal law.
“Many people forget about this [immunity] law, including me, but Chhouk Rin’s lawyer didn’t forget,” he said Wednesday. “When the government adopts a Khmer Rouge trial law, people should take this case into account so it doesn’t happen again.”
Suy Nou, secretary of state for the Ministry of Justice, said it’s wrong to link the Khmer Rouge trial to the Chhouk Rin case, because international laws, including Untac laws, will be used in the tribunal.
“Trying the Khmer Rouge leadership is different from the legal procedures used for Chhouk Rin,” he said.
A Western diplomat said comparing the Chhouk Rin case to a trial for Khmer Rouge leaders is “like comparing apples and oranges.”
“What is going to happen in the Khmer Rouge trial is very different than what happened in Phnom Penh [on Tuesday],” he said. “It’s one thing to have the government cut a deal with Chhouk Rin. It’s very different when the King grants amnesty for a prior conviction.”
Ok Serei Sopheak, co-chairman of the Cambodian Center for Conflict Resolution, agreed that the two cases should be viewed separately.
“Chhouk Rin is a specific case and you must not extrapolate what happened at that trial for the Khmer Rouge trial,” he said.
“The Khmer Rouge trial is not only for Cambodia, it’s for humanity. It’s not a normal case.”
Although Ok Serei Sopheak said he sympathized with the families of the Western victims in the train attack, foreigners should not have high expectations of the legal system in Cambodia.
“The parents [of the victims] come from well structured and well developed legal systems,” Ok Serei Sopheak said.
“For however sad we are for them, the justice system is still in baby stages in Cambodia and we have to accept this reality.”
(Additional reporting by Alex Devine)
