Ieng Sary, Dead Before Justice Is Done

BEIJING â€" Brother Number Three is dead.

In a “surreal moment” late last year, the 87-year-old Ieng Sary, watching his trial for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes from a holding cell out of the judges’ view as he lay on a bed because of his poor health, fell asleep as “wrenching testimony” was given against him, The Globe and Mail reported. His defense lawyer, Ang Udom, asked the court for an adjournment.

Falling asleep, declared mentally unfit, dying - the leaders of the Khmer Rouge are disappearing before justice can be done, critics say.

Mr. Ieng Sary co-founded the Khmer Rouge with his brother-in-law, Pol Pot, the former foreign minister. His death on Thursday came as he was on trial in Phnom Pnh in Case 002, the second case of the Cambodian and United Nations tribunal that is trying former leaders and high-level officials of the Khmer Rouge, according to widespread reports citing the tribunal spokesman, Lars Olsen.

Formally, the court, which began work in 2006, is known as the Extraordinary Chambers in the Court of Cambodia.

The death of Mr. Ieng Sary, who was hospitalized 10 days ago, according to media reports, highlighted the difficulties facing the court, which many said has moved too slowly amid very complicated politics, as this tweet suggested:

In January, I reported on the problem in a post on this site that called the story of the court “a remarkable tale of perseverance and pitfalls.”

Other defendants in Case 002 are Khieu Samphan, an ex-president of the Khmer Rouge, and Nuon Chea, chief ideologue for the Communist movement. A fourth defendant, Ieng Sary’s wife, Ieng Thirith, an ex-social affairs minister, “was ruled unfit to stand trial because of a degenerative mental illness,” Voice of America said. Pol Pot died in 1998 without facing trial.

The court’s first trial, Case 001, saw “Duch,” or Kaing Guek Eav, the commandant of the main Khmer Rouge prison, Tuol Sleng, ultimately sentenced to life in prison.

MR. Ieng Sary, the former foreign minister and the Khmer Rouge’s top diplomat, “was said to have been responsible for convincing many educated Cambodians who had fled the Khmer Rouge to return to help rebuild the country,” the BBC wrote. “Many were then tortured and executed as part of the purge of intellectuals.”

About 1.7 million people died in the Khmer Rouge’s campaign of massmurder. Here’s a fuller account by the BBC, which quoted Mr. Olsen as saying, “We are disappointed that we could not complete the proceeding against Ieng Sary.” However, the case against the remaining two defendants would continue and would not be affected, Mr. Olsen said.

As my colleague Seth Mydans reports: “Mr. Ieng Sary was part of an inner circle of partly Paris-educated communists who led the movement that caused the deaths of 1.7 million people from starvation, overwork and execution during its rule over Cambodia from 1975 to 1979.”

“I have done nothing wrong,” Mr. Ieng Sary said before his arrest in 2007, Seth wrote. “I am a gentle person. I believe in good deeds. I even performed good deeds to save several people’s lives.”

But “Mr. Ieng Sary ‘repeatedly and publicly encouraged, and also facilitated, arrests and executions within his Foreign Ministry and throughout Cambodia,’ wrote Steve He! der, a Ca! mbodia scholar who assisted the tribunal and is co-author of “Seven Candidates for Prosecution: Accountability for the Crimes of the Khmer Rouge,” Seth reported.