'We were serving Cambodia' Pol Pot No 2 tells genocide trial

THE DEPUTY leader of the Khmer Rouge has today defended his involvement in the genocide of two million Cambodians in the 1970s by saying he "served the interests of the nation", the BBC reports.
 
Nuon Chea, deputy to the regime’s infamous leader Pol Pot, delivered a 90-minute speech on the second day of the UN genocide tribunal in Phnom Penh. He explained the ideology behind a decade-long reign of terror by the Khmer Rouge that caused the deaths of around a quarter of the Cambodian population.
 
"We wanted to free Cambodia from being a servant of other countries and we wanted to build Cambodia as a society that is clean and independent without any killing," he told the court. Chea also blamed the "python" Vietnam for threatening to "swallow" Cambodia, a threat which he felt justified the Communist regime's harsh controls.
 
Chea, 85, is charged with genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, along with two other regime figureheads: Khieu Samphan, 80, a former head of state, and Ieng Sary, 86, the former foreign minister.
 
There is no estimate of how long proceedings will take. Testimonies are set to begin on 5 December.
 
The defendants represent only the second case to be tried before the genocide tribunal, after 'Comrade Duch' was sentenced to 35 years imprisonment in 2009. ·