 | Another international legal triumph. |
A former military chief of Cambodia's notorious Khmer Rouge "killing fields" regime and alleged perpetrator of many of its worst atrocities, Ta Mok, died yesterday in hospital in the capital, Phnom Penh.
The death of the one-legged fighter known as "the Butcher", who replaced the Maoist movement's leader, Pol Pot, in a 1997 putsch, is a blow to the international tribunal that started work this month to try the regime's surviving leaders.
| It could be worse, at least Carla's still in Europe. |
Ta Mok, born Ung Choeun, was arrested on genocide and crimes against humanity charges in 1999. He was one of only two Khmer Rouge cadres in detention awaiting trial. His lawyer said he fell into a coma last week after suffering from high blood pressure, tuberculosis and respiratory complications. A military doctor said Ta Mok, who is thought to have been about 82, "died of natural causes, given his poor health and respiratory problems".
| He's 82 friggin' years old! You expected him to last til the end of the trial? |
Youk Chhang, the head of the Documentation Centre of Cambodia, which has spent decades gathering evidence about the 1975-1979 regime in which 1.7 million Cambodians - a quarter of the population - were either killed or worked and starved to death, said both the Cambodian government and United Nations should take some responsibility for his death. "The government has denied access or adequate services to take care of him while the tribunal did not make any effort to engage with him for the sake of the victims," he told the Guardian.
| There's no need to make a spectacle of the man. Hang him before he's dead. |
Reach Sambath, a tribunal spokesman, said he did not want to comment on individuals. "The aim is to try the whole regime," he said. "We're focusing on the most senior leaders and most responsible people."
| "We'll get around to it, don't worry!" |
Ta Mok was in charge of many of the most brutal crackdowns, dispatched troops to areas which had not yet adopted the regime's "year zero" philosophy and initiated some internal purges in later years.
The only Khmer Rouge commander now in detention is Kaing Khek Lev, who ran the notorious Toul Sleng, or S-21, prison in Phnom Penh.
| And he's as old as Moses. |
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