(ANSA) - PHNOM PENH, AUG 19 - Khieu Samphan, 90, the last survivor of the hierarchs of the bloody regime of the Khmer Rouge of Pol Pot in Cambodia, denies having had a role in the genocide, for which he was sentenced to life imprisonment in first instance by a court under the aegis of the UN.
"I categorically reject the accusation that I intended to commit the crimes. I never committed them," said Samphan himself at the end of the hearing in the international court to which he appealed in the hope of having the sentence overturned. His lawyer reiterated that in the trial, in which in 2018 he was found guilty of enocide against Vietnamese minorities and Cham Muslims in Cambodia, "selectively" evidence and witnesses were brought, omitting those in his favor. Then he added resigned, considering his age: "My condemnation is symbolic and is not based on my actions as an individual. But no matter what you decide, I will die in jail."
Now the appeal verdict is expected in 2022.
Over 100 witnesses in three years of trial have recounted in the smallest detail atrocities of all kinds committed during the radical Khmer Rouge communist regime between 1975 and 1979, under which at least two million people were killed and overthrown by the invasion by Vietnam.
The only two survivors to whom the sentence was imposed in 2018 were Samphan and Nuon Chea, nicknamed "Brother Number Two", as the right hand of "Brother Number One", that is Pol Pot. Nuon Chea then died in 2019. (ANSA).