Khmer Rouge

At night, the old woman hears the voices of her children crying out for her. She knows they will never stop. Um Sath is 89, and it has been three decades since the Khmer Rouge laid waste to Cambodia. But she shuts her eyes and furiously taps her temples to show exactly where the genocidal regime still rules with impunity. "We miss you, Mama," the voices cry. Sath spends much of her day sitting in silence and fighting her mind.

Medics working for Cambodia's former Khmer Rouge rulers at a notorious death camp slowly killed prisoners by draining their blood to be used for infusions for privileged cadres, according to allegations presented Monday at a hearing for one of the regime's leaders. Kang Kek Ieu ran the S-21 prison, also known as Tuol Sleng, where more than 12,000 men, women and children were tortured before being executed in the nearby "killing fields" outside the capital, Phnom Penh.

Plagued by long delays and corruption allegations, the special court prosecuting Cambodia's former Khmer Rouge leaders on genocide charges is running short of money months before its first trial is set to start. The court, which was set up by the United Nations and Cambodia's government two years ago, needs $43.8 million to continue operating through 2009, administrators said Tuesday in Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital.

Cambodian and international judges announced rules for a U.N.-backed genocide trial, putting aside the last major roadblock to trying former Khmer Rouge leaders. The deal was reached during a weeklong meeting that followed six months of disagreement about how to proceed, the judges said at a joint news conference in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh. About 1.7 million people died from hunger, disease, overwork and execution under the communist Khmer Rouge during its 1975-79 reign.

A former schoolteacher accused of presiding over a torture center was charged with crimes against humanity, becoming the first top figure of Cambodia's notorious Khmer Rouge to be indicted by a United Nations-backed tribunal in connection with atrocities that led to an estimated 1.7 million deaths.

taprum, cambodia -- Down a potholed dirt road from the Diamond Crown Hotel and Casino, where Thai low-rollers place their bets on blackjack and roulette, Brother No. 2 plays a waiting game with justice. Nuon Chea, the frail former right-hand man to the late tyrant Pol Pot, lives in a stilted house of rough-hewn planks on the Thai border, enjoying the quiet life of a retiree.

Last month, nearly 30 years after the Khmer Rouge reign of terror, the first indictment was issued by a U.N.-backed war crimes tribunal in Cambodia. From 1975 to 1979, more than 1.7 million people died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot. Now, after years of prolonged negotiations and conniving by the international community, the tribunal finally looks set to begin its work.

Police arrested the top surviving leader of the Khmer Rouge, Nuon Chea, today because of his role in the notorious Cambodian regime that caused the deaths of 1.7 million people in the 1970s. Officers served Nuon Chea with a warrant for his arrest on charges of crimes against humanity at his home in Pailin, in northwestern Cambodia near the Thai border, police Capt. Sem Sophal said.

Police detained former Khmer Rouge Foreign Minister Ieng Sary and took him to Cambodia's U.N.-assisted genocide tribunal today for prosecution. Tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath said Ieng Sary and his wife, Ieng Thirith, had been brought to court according to a warrant issued by the tribunal, but he gave no details of the charges they faced.

Prime Minister Hun Sen ordered the emergency hospitalization of a former Khmer Rouge leader Wednesday, amid concern that health and old age would keep another member of Pol Pot's notorious inner circle from facing justice.