Thai military denies it helped Pol Pot escape Pailin

Thai military denies it helped Pol Pot escape Pailin

BANGKOK (AFP): The Thai military has denied allegations by Cambodia's co-premier, Prince Norodom Ranariddh, that it helped Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot escape a government offensive, Thai dailies said yesterday.

The accusations are "groundless" and potentially destructive to Thailand's image, Thai Armed Forces spokesman Lt. Gen. Anusorn Krisanaseni was quoted as saying in The Nation.

Ranariddh had told reporters in Phnom Penh on Tuesday that he had photographs showing a convoy of trucks spiriting the shadowy guerrilla leader from the former Khmer Rouge stronghold at Pailin and through Thai territory.

"Thailand will not be happy with us but we have pictures to prove (it)," he said.

"I can show you a picture of Pol Pot, his house being attacked, and Pol Pot escaping with cars and a convoy of trucks driving on a tarmac road inside Thai territory," Ranariddh said.

He did not produce any photographs nor specify how they had been obtained.

Anusorn countered in the press here that the only convoy of Thai trucks to have entered Cambodia did so after the offensive at Pailin and only to repatriate refugees who had fled the fighting there.

Cambodian government forces seized the resource-rich town March 19.

Some 25,000 refugees, most of them identified as Khmer Rouge families, crossed into Thailand immediately. A Thai Navy task force one week later repatriated them to a Khmer Rouge-controlled area 45 kilometers north of Pailin.

The Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot were responsible for a reign of terror from 1975 to 1979 during which some one million Cambodians died of illness, starvation and execution.