Cambodian police have arrested former Khmer Rouge leader Nuon Chea for his role in the former regime that caused the deaths of nearly two million people.
Witnesses say police took Nuon Chea into custody Wednesday in his hometown of Pailin, the Khmer Rouge former stronghold in Cambodia's northwest. Nuon Chea was transferred to the capital, Phnom Penh, by helicopter.
Witnesses say he has been taken to the U.N.-backed tribunal assigned to prosecute former Khmer Rouge leaders.
Nuon Chea, in his early 80s, is the group's senior surviving member. Known as "Brother Number Two," he was the deputy of the late Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot and the group's chief political ideologue during its reign from 1975 to 1979.
The Khmer Rouge cleared Cambodians from the cities and forced them to toil on work farms in the countryside in a quest to create a self-sufficient agrarian society devoid of social classes. Most of their victims died from overwork, starvation, or murder.
Nuon Chea is the second person to be served an arrest warrant by the tribunal. The former Khmer Rouge prison chief, Kaing Guek Eav, commonly known "Duch," was taken into custody in July on charges of crimes against humanity.
Pol Pot died in 1998.
Date: 09/19/2007
Url:
http://www.voanews.com/english ....
Author: news voice America
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