Phnom Penh , Nov. 16 – Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) on Friday, decided to sentence the two most senior surviving leaders of former Khmer Rouge regime to life imprisonment, charged of committing genocide and other crimes against humanity.
Nuon Chea, 92, was Deputy Secretary-General of Cambodian Communist Party and Khieu Samphan, 87, head of state during the brutal regime from 1975 to 1979, officially known as Democratic Kampuchea.
The Cambodian genocide was carried out by the Khmer Rouge regime under the leadership of Pol Pot, inflicting a population loss between 1.7 million people from 1975 to 1979.
The ECCC, incepted in 2006, has so far spent nearly $300 million on the trials of the two top leaders, and those of Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch, chief jail at Tuol Sleng prison from 1976 to 1979, where many people were tortured. Duch was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2012 for the deaths of more than 12,000 people at the torture center, according to Kyodo.
