A Final Appeal and the Khmer Rouge Tribunal Winds Down
Voice of America
PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA - The last surviving leader of the Khmer Rouge, Khieu Samphan, has made his final appeal against his conviction for genocide as the long-running United Nations-backed Cambodia tribunal held its last public hearings before winding down.
Amid tight security and health restrictions imposed to guard against the COVID-19 pandemic, Khieu Samphan delivered a dramatic 16-minute defense in which he categorically refused to accept his 2018 conviction for genocide against Cambodia's Muslim Cham and ethnic Vietnamese. “I cannot accept the accusation that I was involved in a plot to commit crimes against my compatriots, including the Cham or the Vietnamese,” he said. “Many years of sitting as a defendant at the end of this long case it is important for me to inform you and especially inform the Cambodian people that I never wanted to commit a crime against my compatriots or anyone else,” he said.FILE - Danny Fenster, center, hugs his mother Rose Fenster as former U.S. diplomat Bill Richardson, right, looks on at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York, Nov. 16, 2021. Journalist Fenster was held in a Myanmar prison. Harrison Li holds a photo of his father, Kai Li, on Jan. 23, 2024, in Palo Alto, Calif. Li's father, Kai, remains detained in China on espionage charges his family says are bogus and FILE - A Hamas cameraman stands behind Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit, released after more than five years in captivity, on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing on Oct. 18, 2011. FILE - Families and friends of current and former hostages and detainees gather outside of the White House in Washington, May 3, 2023, to ask the Biden administration for more help. FILE - Joey and Paula Reed pose for a photo with a portrait of their son Marine veteran and Russian prisoner Trevor Reed at their home in Fort Worth, Texas, Feb. 15, 2022. FILE - In this March 16, 2016, file photo, American student Otto Warmbier, center, is escorted at the Supreme Court in Pyongyang, North Korea.
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