Khmer Rouge detainees Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan underwent routine medical examinations at Calmette Hospital on Tuesday, part of the Khmer Rouge tribunal’s ongoing monitoring of their increasingly frail health, officials said.
Former Khmer Rouge Foreign Minister Ieng Sary, who turns 83 later this month, is also scheduled to be examined later this week, tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath said.
“They have no specific health problems,” Reach Sambath added.
Defense lawyers for both Nuon Chea, 82, and Ieng Sary have lodged appeals, seeking the appointment of independent experts to determine whether their clients are psychologically and medically fit to stand trial.
Hospitalized at least five times since his November arrest, Ieng Sary has undergone four heart operations since 1994 and produced blood in his urine on at least two occasions earlier this year.
Khieu Samphan, 77, suffered a stroke in May causing partial paralysis, but the court’s co-investigating judges ruled in June that he was healthy enough to remain in detention.
Sa Sovan, Khieu Samphan’s Cambodian lawyer, said Tuesday that today the defense would again submit a letter to the court’s co-investigating judges seeking provisional release for their client and claiming that grounds for his detention, which include witness intimidation and ensuring public order, are no longer met.
“These conditions no longer exist,” Sa Sovan said.
Co-Investigating Judges Marcel Lemonde and You Bun Leng, who denied a similar request in June, are to question Khieu Samphan on Thursday about the conditions of his detention, Sa Sovan said.
An April bail hearing for Khieu Samphan was halted when his French lawyer Jacques Verges refused to participate because courts documents had not been translated into French.
Defense lawyers have proposed appearing this month to make oral arguments on an appeal for the translation of evidence.
(Additional reporting by Neou Vannarin)
