The defense team for the former head of state of Cambodia’s brutal Khmer Rouge regime argued Tuesday that his genocide conviction should be overturned, calling into question evidence presented at his original trial before an international tribunal.
In the second day of Khieu Samphan’s appeal, attorney Anta Guissé told judges that evidence of killings of Vietnamese minorities in Cambodian border provinces Prey Veng and Svay Rieng was weak, and questioned whether the slayings rose to the level of genocide.
The 90-year-old defendant is the last living member of the top leadership of the Khmer Rouge, the radical communist regime that ruled Cambodia with an iron fist from 1975 to 1979 and was responsible for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people.
In full: https://apnews.com/article/health-coronavirus-pandemic-cambodia-343c02dbeb0547662bd431c9e32bbc6a
