Khmer Rouge chiefs slip away, trial unlikely

Khmer Rouge chiefs slip away, trial unlikely

PHNOM PENH (Reuters): The Cambodian government allowed two Khmer Rouge leaders to return on Sunday to a Khmer Rouge-run area and the chances of their standing trial for genocide appeared to have faded away.

The government, which horrified human rights groups and many ordinary Cambodians for giving a VIP welcome to Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea last week instead of arresting them, denied it was letting them escape justice.

Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea, who came over to the government side after calls for them to face an international tribunal for genocide and crimes against humanity, were principal architects of the late Pol Pot's catastrophic revolution in Cambodia between 1975 and 1979 which cost an estimated 1.7 million lives.

A spokesman said the government still wanted a trial but the two were free to go because no warrant existed for their arrest.

"Everyone is presumed innocent until they are proven guilty," government spokesman Khieu Kanharith told Reuters.

"We say they are free to go until they are summoned by a court. If the court does summon them and they don't return, then they can be in contempt of court.

"How can you be sure they won't return?"

The two left the northwestern town of Battambang by military helicopter for the western town of Pailin near the Thai border in the morning, Battambang police chief Chan Kosal told Reuters.

Analysts say it could be difficult for the government to bring the Khmer Rouge leaders back from Pailin should arrest warrants be issued, but most have dismissed its argument that arresting them in Phnom Penh could have rekindled Cambodia's civil war.

Pailin, close to the Thai border some 300 kilometers northwest of Phnom Penh, is nominally under the control of the government.

But it is run by Ieng Sary, another top Khmer Rouge leader who received a royal amnesty after his 1996 defection.

Lao Mong Hay, director of the Khmer Institute of Democracy, slammed the government for allowing the two to return.

"They shouldn't have allowed them to go back," he said. "They should have arrested and detained them while waiting for the United Nations to decide on a tribunal."

Experts hired by the United Nations have been looking into the possibility of setting up a tribunal to try Khmer Rouge leaders and are due to report at the end of this month.

Prime Minister Hun Sen, who drew fire when he suggested last week that a trial might not be in the national interest, said on Friday he backed a trial but it was up to the courts, not him, to decide when and how to bring a case against them.

While saying he could not give anyone immunity, he stressed his immediate priority was national reconciliation.

Hun Sen gave a possible indication of this when he said on Friday that Thailand had handed over the two men on condition that they be allowed to "return to live in society".

Meanwhile, Thailand hit out at neighboring Cambodia on Sunday in a row over the fate of the two former leaders of the Khmer Rouge which ruled Cambodia during the "Killing Fields" years of the 1970s.

Thai Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai told Thai radio that Cambodia was trying to "pass the buck" to Thailand over the fate of the two men, Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea, and divert attention from its own responsibilities.

Chuan was responding to questions about remarks made by Hun Sen on Friday in which he was reported to have said a neighboring country had sheltered the Khmer Rouge leaders before they defected to the government last month.