Ex-Khmer Rouge colonel gets life

2002-09-06 12:06

Phnom Penh - Ex-Khmer Rouge colonel Chhouk Rin, standing re-trial for the 1994 murders of three backpackers from Britain, France and Australia, was re-convicted in absentia on Friday by a Cambodian appeal court.

The presiding judge said Chhouk Rin, first sent down by a local court in 2000 for killing Briton Mark Slater (28), Frenchman Jean-Michel Braquet (27), and 29-year-old Australian David Wilson, would spend the rest of his life behind bars once he is caught.

"The court announces that Chhouk Rin has been convicted under the terrorism act and sentenced to life in jail," Judge Samrith Sophal told the packed Phnom Penh appeal court.

Chhouk Rin's lawyer, Put Theavy, said he would be appealing against the decision. Chhouk Rin's whereabouts were not immediately known.

The case against the former guerrilla commander is seen as a barometer of Cambodia's willingness to punish crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge, whose bloody four-year rule in the 1970s left around 1.7 million Cambodians dead.

Chhouk Rin, who did not attend the hearing which he says is politically motivated and unfair, walked free shortly after his first conviction when a higher court ruled he was covered by a government amnesty to guerrillas who laid down their arms.

Since that acquittal, the victims' families and foreign governments involved have piled the pressure on Cambodia to bring the killers to justice.

'Court's done its job'

Jean-Claude Braquet, the murdered Frenchman's father who has maintained a personal crusade to have his son's killers brought to trial, applauded the court's verdict.

"I'm very pleased. The Cambodian court has at last done its job," he said.

Representatives of Britain and Australia, who were in court, also welcomed the decision.

"We're very pleased with this outcome. We've been wanting justice for the Wilson family for a long time," Australia's ambassador to Phnom Penh, Louise Hand, told reporters outside the courthouse.

The backpackers, abducted from a train ambushed by Khmer Rouge troops, were killed after two months of ransom negotiations broke down and before government troops managed to overrun the mountain stronghold where they were being held.

Thirteen Cambodians also died in the train attack.

Chhouk Rin's lawyer has complained that the appeal court, part of Cambodia's notoriously inefficient and corrupt legal system, failed to follow correct procedure in calling defence witnesses, resulting in a one-sided and unfair hearing.

- Reuters