Khieu Samphan, one of the senior leaders of the Pol Pot genocidal regime, at the court on August 19, 2021. (Photo: AFP/VNA) This final ruling by the ECCC’s Supreme Court Chamber onSamphan's appeal against his life sentence would bring Case 002/02, along withthe decade-long tribunal, to a close as there are no further cases on thedocket, The Phnom Penh Post reported.
Prior to the pronouncement of the verdict, the ECCC held a pressconference on September 20 to reveal the procedural steps in the case and thebackground of the proceedings from the court's first day up to its finalhearing.
Neth Pheaktra, chief of the Public Affairs Office and spokesmanfor the ECCC, confirmed that Samphan’s verdict would bring to a close itsmission to seek truth and justice for the Pol Pot victims through trialsagainst former senior leaders of the Democratic Kampuchea regime and those mostresponsible for the heinous crimes committed from April 17, 1975 to January 6,1979.
Samphan – now 91 and the only surviving former senior Pol Potleader – has been in custody since November 19, 2007, when he was firstarrested and has remained there through his August 7, 2014 conviction.
The crimes against humanity Samphan participated in included theexecutions of the former regime's loyalists after the fall of Phnom Penh inApril, 1975 and for the subsequent forced evacuation of the civilian populationof the capital, which led to the deaths of tens of thousands of people.
Samphan was also found guilty of grave breaches of the 1949Geneva Conventions and genocide against the Vietnamese.
He and his lawyer appealed the November 2018 verdict, pleadingthat the Supreme Court Chamber reduces his life sentence to a limited prisonterm. The Supreme Court Chamber held hearings on the appeal from August 16-19last year, with both the prosecution and Samphan's defence attorneys presentingarguments to the court./.
VNA
