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The
Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of
Cambodia adjourned Monday an appeal hearing
for former Khmer Rouge leader Nuon Chea,
better known as Brother No. 2, who is
seeking a release on bail.
The adjournment was made after Nuon Chea
said his foreign co-lawyer was barred from
defending him in the court room.
While standing in the courtroom for the
first time, Nuon Chea said he had right to
demand for foreign lawyer to defend him.
Nuon Chea, 81, was arrested last September
in his home in Pailin near the Thai border
and was charged with war crimes and crimes
against humanity.
He has been in provisional detention since
then in the facilities of the Extraordinary
Chambers in the Court of Cambodia.
His Cambodian and two foreign lawyers have
appealed to the court to release their
client on bail, citing his age and illness.
Nuon Chea has chosen Son Arun as his
Cambodian lawyer and Michiel Pestman and
Victor Koppe as his foreign lawyers.
But Koppe, who was to defend his client with
Son Arun on Monday, was not allowed to do so
because he was not yet recognized by the
Cambodia Bar Association.
Koppe said he was surprised at a decision
last Friday by the bar association that
barred him from the court.
''My application has been, in principle,
approved by the bar since October last
year,'' he said.
Nuon Chea is one of the five suspects taken
to the U.N.-Cambodia-established ECCC set up
to bring former Khmer Rouge leaders to trial
for their crimes committed from 1975 to 1979
during which they were blamed for the deaths
of at least 1.7 million Cambodians.
The other four are Kaing Khek Ieu, alias
Duch, head of the Tuol Sleng torture center
in Phnom Penh; Khieu Samphan, who was Khmer
Rouge head of state; Ieng Sary, who was the
regime's foreign minister; and Ieng Thirith,
who was its social affairs minister. |
