Police and officials from Cambodia's UN-backed Khmer Rouge genocide trial today arrested the movement's former foreign minister and his wife, who were among the most senior cadres in the regime responsible for the deaths of 1.7 million people in the "killing fields".
The ailing Ieng Sary and his wife, Ieng Thirith, whose sister was married to the former Khmer Rouge leader, Pol Pot, were taken to the tribunal's headquarters where they will be charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed during the movement's four-year reign of terror 30 years ago.
The couple have been living freely in some style in the capital, Phnom Penh, for more than a decade after Ieng Sary, thought to be 77, was given limited amnesty from prosecution after he and his followers defected to the government from the Khmer Rouge, prompting its final collapse.
But early this morning police closed off the street where they live and searched their villa for three hours.
The couple were then taken away in a 10-vehicle convoy to face a brief hearing of the tribunal, which was finally set up this year after a decade of wrangling.
They are the third and fourth members of a group of five senior Khmer Rouge leaders likely to be tried for the deaths of so many Cambodians through torture, execution, disease and starvation after the paranoid regime declared 1975 - the start of its rule - "Year Zero".
Two others were taken into custody earlier this year.
Noun Chea, 82, was the former Khmer Rouge ideologist known as "brother number two", who served as Pol Pot's deputy.
Kaing Guek Iev Eav, 64, better known as Duch, headed the notorious Toul Sleng prison where 14,000 Cambodians were tortured and executed.
Prosecutors say Ieng Sary, who became the Khmer Rouge's public face as foreign minister during the 1980s, "promoted, instigated, facilitated and ... condoned the preparation of the crimes" and planned and directed the forcible transfer of millions from cities to the countryside.
Ieng Sary is said to be responsible for persuading many Cambodian intellectuals who fled overseas to return home to rebuild the shattered country, only to find themselves imprisoned, tortured and executed.
By contrast, the former foreign minister has lived in luxury and accrued wealth and property over the past decade.
He has repeatedly denied any wrong-doing and even claims to have saved people from the brutal Khmer Rouge purges.
"Brother number three" was born Kim Trang to a poor family in a province of Cambodia that is now part of Vietnam.
On government scholarships, he studied in Paris in the 1950s with Pol Pot and the pair began to develop the vision that was to become the Khmer Rouge.
He returned home in 1957 and married Pol Pot's sister-in-law Khieu Thirith, who took his surname and became Ieng Thirith.
She rose through the Khmer Rouge ranks to become social affairs minister and is accused of the murder of staff there, as well as planning widespread purges in the movement's ranks.
The ailing Ieng Sary and his wife, Ieng Thirith, whose sister was married to the former Khmer Rouge leader, Pol Pot, were taken to the tribunal's headquarters where they will be charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed during the movement's four-year reign of terror 30 years ago.
The couple have been living freely in some style in the capital, Phnom Penh, for more than a decade after Ieng Sary, thought to be 77, was given limited amnesty from prosecution after he and his followers defected to the government from the Khmer Rouge, prompting its final collapse.
But early this morning police closed off the street where they live and searched their villa for three hours.
The couple were then taken away in a 10-vehicle convoy to face a brief hearing of the tribunal, which was finally set up this year after a decade of wrangling.
They are the third and fourth members of a group of five senior Khmer Rouge leaders likely to be tried for the deaths of so many Cambodians through torture, execution, disease and starvation after the paranoid regime declared 1975 - the start of its rule - "Year Zero".
Two others were taken into custody earlier this year.
Noun Chea, 82, was the former Khmer Rouge ideologist known as "brother number two", who served as Pol Pot's deputy.
Kaing Guek Iev Eav, 64, better known as Duch, headed the notorious Toul Sleng prison where 14,000 Cambodians were tortured and executed.
Prosecutors say Ieng Sary, who became the Khmer Rouge's public face as foreign minister during the 1980s, "promoted, instigated, facilitated and ... condoned the preparation of the crimes" and planned and directed the forcible transfer of millions from cities to the countryside.
Ieng Sary is said to be responsible for persuading many Cambodian intellectuals who fled overseas to return home to rebuild the shattered country, only to find themselves imprisoned, tortured and executed.
By contrast, the former foreign minister has lived in luxury and accrued wealth and property over the past decade.
He has repeatedly denied any wrong-doing and even claims to have saved people from the brutal Khmer Rouge purges.
"Brother number three" was born Kim Trang to a poor family in a province of Cambodia that is now part of Vietnam.
On government scholarships, he studied in Paris in the 1950s with Pol Pot and the pair began to develop the vision that was to become the Khmer Rouge.
He returned home in 1957 and married Pol Pot's sister-in-law Khieu Thirith, who took his surname and became Ieng Thirith.
She rose through the Khmer Rouge ranks to become social affairs minister and is accused of the murder of staff there, as well as planning widespread purges in the movement's ranks.
A few miles from th
is rough guest house at the edge of a mosquito swamp is the last home and the grave of Pol Pot. A pile of ashes under a rusty corrugated iron sheet marks the spot where in 1998 his body was cremated on a pyre of rubber ties. Now it's on the genocide trail. The Cambodian government has provided an information board for the few adventurous back packers who are prepared to bump for four hours or more up the dirt road from the ruins of the great civilization at Angkor, to this bleak collection of huts. Here, in Pol Pot's last stronghold, many of the locals are former Khmer Rouge soldiers and they still speak well of him.
His name has already been written into history as one of the world's most ruthless despots. Yet before I began working on this film I knew almost nothing of Pol Pot and his revolution, his great social experiment. For so many years, BBC producers like me have been churning out programmes about Hitler and the Final Solution. Almost anyone who has ever worn an SS uniform is considered worthy of two or three filmed cassettes. And yet here those who stood shoulder to shoulder with Pol Pot, the leaders of his revolution - Pol's Goebbels, Pol's Himmler - who live free and prosperous. And the government that provides the information boards for tourists has shown almost no interest in bringing any of those who were responsible for the deaths of nearly two million people to justice.
'It is almost impossible to view Pol Pot and his revolution as history...'
It is almost impossible to view Pol Pot and his revolution as history - the past carefully documented, recorded, tidied - because almost nothing has been settled. Pol Pot has gone, but the country is still trapped by the revolution and the legacy of the killing fields. Although most people want those who were responsible to be put on trial, they now believe it won't happen. And I feel that, in a way, this imposes a special responsibility on us as programme makers.
is rough guest house at the edge of a mosquito swamp is the last home and the grave of Pol Pot. A pile of ashes under a rusty corrugated iron sheet marks the spot where in 1998 his body was cremated on a pyre of rubber ties. Now it's on the genocide trail. The Cambodian government has provided an information board for the few adventurous back packers who are prepared to bump for four hours or more up the dirt road from the ruins of the great civilization at Angkor, to this bleak collection of huts. Here, in Pol Pot's last stronghold, many of the locals are former Khmer Rouge soldiers and they still speak well of him.His name has already been written into history as one of the world's most ruthless despots. Yet before I began working on this film I knew almost nothing of Pol Pot and his revolution, his great social experiment. For so many years, BBC producers like me have been churning out programmes about Hitler and the Final Solution. Almost anyone who has ever worn an SS uniform is considered worthy of two or three filmed cassettes. And yet here those who stood shoulder to shoulder with Pol Pot, the leaders of his revolution - Pol's Goebbels, Pol's Himmler - who live free and prosperous. And the government that provides the information boards for tourists has shown almost no interest in bringing any of those who were responsible for the deaths of nearly two million people to justice.
'It is almost impossible to view Pol Pot and his revolution as history...'
It is almost impossible to view Pol Pot and his revolution as history - the past carefully documented, recorded, tidied - because almost nothing has been settled. Pol Pot has gone, but the country is still trapped by the revolution and the legacy of the killing fields. Although most people want those who were responsible to be put on trial, they now believe it won't happen. And I feel that, in a way, this imposes a special responsibility on us as programme makers.
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