Arrest seen as boost for Khmer Rouge genocide court

0 Comments | AFP, September, 2007

PHNOM PENH (AFP) — The arrest of the Khmer Rouge regime's top surviving leader will lend much-needed credibility to Cambodia's beleaguered UN-backed genocide court, analysts say, but is only a small step on the road to justice.

They warn that the complicated process of bringing former regime leaders to justice could yet become tangled in the bickering and allegations of political interference that have marred the proceedings so far.

Nuon Chea, who became the communist movement's chief ideologue and is said to have engineered its sweeping execution policies, was arrested Wednesday and charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity by the court.

Aged 82, he is the first of several former leaders still living freely in Cambodia to be seized for atrocities...