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US backs genocide tribunal
>From Ker Munthit in Phnom Penh
Sunday Herald, UK –
April, 07, 2007
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A SENIOR American official urged Cambodian and foreign judges
yesterday to put aside their squabble over legal fees and move forward
with the much-delayed Khmer Rouge genocide tribunal. "The Khmer Rouge
tribunal is really the opportunity for Cambodia to show the
international community how far it has advanced," said Eric G John,
the US deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific
affairs. "And it would be a shame not to be able to show how far it’s
advanced by letting this tribunal get hung up on what is a relatively
down-in-the-weeds monetary issue," he said at the end of a four-day
visit to Cambodia.
On Friday, Cambodian judges for the UN-backed genocide tribunal blamed
their international peers for delaying the trials, which were due to
start this year.
Foreign judges decided earlier this week to boycott an April 30
meeting meant to adopt rules that will guide the trials. Their
decision was prompted by the refusal of the Cambodian Bar Association
to reverse a decision to impose high legal fees on foreign lawyers
wishing to serve at the tribunal.
The foreign judges have described the $4900 (£2500) charge as
prohibitive and said it would allow the accused to argue that they
have not been afforded the right to have counsel of their choice, in
breach of international agreements on civil and political rights.
The Cambodian judges said, in a statement on Friday, they regretted
the foreign judges’ decision, which "would further delay the process
of the court".
Many fear that internal disputes could delay efforts to bring the
Khmer Rouge’s few surviving leaders to trial for crimes against
humanity for the deaths of about 1.7 million people during the group’s
1975-79 rule.