The former “First Lady” of Cambodia’s murderous Khmer Rouge regime was freed on Sunday, a court official said, after the country’s war crimes tribunal had ruled she was unfit to stand trial.
Ieng Thirith, 80, who experts say has Alzheimer’s disease, was driven in a convoy with police and officials from the purpose-built detention facility at the Phnom Penh court where she has been held since 2007.
“The accused Ieng Thirith has been released with some provisional conditions,” court spokesman Neth Pheaktra said.
“She was picked up by her children,” he added, without giving details of where the genocide suspect would be taken.
The release of the ex-social affairs minister, one of only a handful of people ever brought before a court over atrocities during the Khmer Rouge era, will come as a bitter blow to many who survived the 1975-1979 regime, blamed for the deaths of up to two million people.
Cambodia’s UN-backed tribunal ordered her release on Thursday, but the move was delayed after prosecutors requested tighter conditions.
