Cambodia's Khmer Rouge court adds mass killings to trial

Cambodia’s UN-backed court on Monday added a mass killing episode to the trial of three former Khmer Rouge leaders, amid fears they will not live long enough to answer for the regime’s worst atrocities.

The move to expand the scope of the trial comes as ex-foreign minister Ieng Sary, 86, is in hospital with a string of serious ailments. Few tribunal insiders expect to see him back in court, lending fresh urgency to the proceedings.

The prosecution wanted three more crime sites to be part of the trial. But judges said they did not want to “risk a substantial prolongation of the trial” and approved just one -- the alleged killing of up to 3,000 former military officers at an execution site in western Cambodia.

“We’re disappointed,” deputy co-prosecutor William Smith told reporters.

Ieng Sary, “Brother Number Two” Nuon Chea and former head of state Khieu Samphan deny charges of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity for their roles in a regime blamed for up to two million deaths in the late 1970s.

Their complex case was last year split into a series of smaller trials, starting with the forced evacuation of the population into rural labour camps.