Khmer Rouge UN Tribunal Opens in Cambodia

More than 30 years after the Khmer Rouge killed some two million Cambodians, the campaign's architects are on trial.

A United Nations tribunal for four of the leading figures of Cambodia's bloody Khmer Rouge regime opened today in the capital Phnom Penh, with onlookers packing a courtroom that seeks to close an ugly chapter of the country's history. The four are facing charges of crimes against humanity for their roles in the Khmer's purges in the 1970s, which killed as many as two million Cambodians, or a quarter of the population. The four on trial are Khieu Samphan, Cambodia's president from 1976-79, and one of the most powerful men in the country behind Khmer leader Pol Pot; his foreign minister, Ieng Sary; Sary's wife and social affairs minister Ieng Thirith; and Nuon Chea, or “Brother Number Two,” Pol Pot's right-hand man and the Khmer's chief ideologue.