Khmer Rouge Tribunal

On Monday, instead of going to class, we all got up mad early to attend the first day of Case 002 of the Khmer Rouge tribunal. You show up at this poorly identified place on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, and get in line for a ticket. Anyone, Khmer or foreign, can attend the trials. Once you get a ticket, you go through a metal detector and have any bags/purses screened. No cameras, phones, or similar electronics are allowed in the building, so I don't have any photos. After this, you get shuttled through a metal fenced in area, just outside the building where the trials are held. Here you can get coffee, watch video about/of the trials (in English), and just generally do nothing. At some point, people begin shuffling into the building, where you go up the stairs, and have your bags searched (I had to take out a eyeliner sharpener?) and you go through another metal detector. After that, you enter a large room with a horseshoe shaped theater. You are given a headset and a kind of radio, so you can listen to the proceedings in your preferred language. Two of the front rows were reserved for monks. There were also a number of Cham (Cambodian Muslims) present. The place was packed by the time it started. Sitting in the audience, you face a large horseshoe shaped glass wall, which is curtained from the inside. When the proceedings start, the curtains open and everyone stands when the judges come in. I couldn't really find good photos online, but this might give you an idea of what the actual court looks like, and the audience behind the glass wall.

There is a lot of controversy surrounding the Khmer Rouge tribunals, I won't get too into it but I can point you to some recent articles. What I saw was basically the defense team (I know someone who works for them, actually, an English law student), raising preliminary objections, which included the fact that the prosecution's list of witnesses was all pseudonyms, other objections they had raised had been ignored by the court, and the fact that in the 90's, King Sihanouk had granted a pardon to one (or all?) of the current defendants on trial. In Addition, in 1979 (?) there was a tribunal that tried some of the current defendants, and Pol Pot, in absentia and found them guilty of most of the current charges (genocide, breaching the Geneva conventions, religious persecution, torture, murder) and sentenced them to death. The death penalty is no longer legal in Cambodia. The defense team is arguing that trying them for these charges is double jeopardy, but that original tribunal was later deemed illegal because it did not conform to international judicial standards. Here's some more from the Phnom Penh Post:

Historic Case 002 opens at KRT