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Media members watch the pronouncement of judgment against two aging former top leaders of the Democratic Kampuchea in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Aug. 7, 2014. The United Nations war crimes tribunal convicted two aging former top leaders of the Democratic Kampuchea, also known as Khmer Rouge, of atrocity crimes against humanity and sentenced them to life in prison, according to a verdict pronounced by the tribunal's president Nil Nonn on Thursday. Xinhua/Sovannara
The United Nations war crimes tribunal convicted two aging former top leaders of the Democratic Kampuchea, also known as Khmer Rouge, of atrocity crimes against humanity and sentenced them to life in prison, according to a verdict pronounced by the tribunal's president Nil Nonn on Thursday.
The two convicts are Nuon Chea, 88, the chief ideologue of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, also known as "Brother Number 2", and Khieu Samphan, 83, the regime's former head of state.
Khieu Samphan, 83, former head of state of the Democratic Kampuchea, known as Khmer Rouge regime, appears in the courtroom in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Aug. 7, 2014.* Xinhua/ECCC*
The duo is among the few surviving top leaders of the regime that was responsible for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people from starvation, overwork, torture, execution, and massacre during the regime from 1975 to 1979.
"The trial chamber finds the accused Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan guilty of crimes against humanity of extermination, murders, political persecution, and other inhumane acts comprising forced evacuation and attack against human dignity committed between 1975 and 1977," said the verdict read by Nil Nonn, president of the tribunal, formally known as the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC).
"The chamber sentences the accused Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan to life imprisonment."
The two ex-top Khmer Rouge leaders appeared in the courtroom to hear the pronouncement of the verdict, which was live broadcast on local television channels and radios.
The verdict came after a two-year trial of the two former senior leaders began in November 2011 and ended in October 2013.
