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UN urges Cambodia to reconsider judge's transfer from genocide tribunal |
The U.N. urged Cambodia to reconsider its decision to transfer a
judge from the Khmer Rouge tribunal, saying the move could disrupt
efforts to convene the long-awaited genocide trials, a spokesman
said Wednesday.
You Bun Leng, one of two investigating judges at the U.N.-backed
tribunal, was recently appointed by the Cambodian government to
head the country's Appeals Court.
After numerous delays, he and Marcel Lemonde, the U.N.-appointed
judge, only recently began investigations of former Khmer Rouge
leaders accused of crimes against humanity, genocide and other
atrocities that caused the deaths of some 1.7 million people in the
late 1970s.
The world body has urged Cambodia "to consider keeping Judge You
Bun Leng in his current function as co-investigative judge" of the
tribunal, said Peter Foster, a U.N.-appointed tribunal spokesman,
in a statement Wednesday.
He said the U.N. officially delivered a note of concern to the
Cambodian permanent representative in New York last Thursday, and
was now awaiting a response.
"Both sides are working on this issue to ensure that justice is
moving forward," said Reach Sambath, a spokesman from the Cambodian
side of the tribunal.
The tribunal was established last year following years of
negotiations between Cambodia and the United Nations. Disagreements
about tribunal rules kept the judges' investigations from starting
until last month.
The judges have so far indicted one of five suspects. Duch, whose
real name is Kaing Guek Eav, headed the former Khmer Rouge S-21
prison. The other four have not been publicly named and still
remain free in Cambodia.
Source: IHT
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