Historical figure

Ieng Sary

A founder of the Khmer Rouge and Democratic Kampuchea's minister for foreign affairs; charged in Case 002, he died during his trial in 2013, before any judgment.

An elderly man with gray hair and glasses, in a dark jacket over a white shirt, seated at a courtroom desk with a microphone in front of him
Ieng Sary at the trial hearing in Case 002 before the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, March 20, 2012

Ieng Sary (1925 to 2013), born Kim Tran, was one of the founders of the Khmer Rouge (ខ្មែរក្រហម) and Democratic Kampuchea's Deputy Prime Minister for Foreign Affairs.[1][2] He went over to the government in 1996 and was pardoned.[2] The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia later charged him in Case 002 with genocide, with crimes against humanity, and with grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions.[1] He died on March 14, 2013, while his trial was still going on, and the court ended the case against him. The tribunal never ruled on those charges.[1][3]

Early life

He was born Kim Tran in 1925 in Loeung Va village, in Tra Vinh province, Vietnam (Kampuchea Krom).[1] In the early 1940s he started at Sisowath High School in Phnom Penh, and in 1950 he won a scholarship to study in Paris.[1] Pol Pot studied there with him.[4] From 1950 to 1957 he belonged to the Marxist Circle and to the French Communist Party, as did Ieng Thirith, Khieu Samphan and Saloth Sar (Pol Pot).[1] Ieng Thirith later served Democratic Kampuchea as Social Affairs Minister and was tried with him.[3]

Party career

At the party's First Congress, in 1960, he met Nuon Chea. The congress elected him to the Central Committee and made him an alternate member of the Standing Committee, fourth in the party's order of rank.[1] At the Second Congress, in February 1963, he became a full member of the Standing Committee of the Communist Party of Kampuchea.[1] He founded the movement with Pol Pot and was known as "Brother Number Three".[2]

In 1966 he became secretary of the Northeast Zone. From 1971 to 1975 he was in China as a "Special Envoy".[1] In June 1974, in the court's profile, he took part in the meeting that decided to empty Phnom Penh.[1]

Minister for foreign affairs

He was appointed deputy prime minister for foreign affairs on August 12, 1975, and was named to the post officially on March 30, 1976.[1] The court's 2013 release also calls him a permanent member of the party's Standing Committee in those years.[5] He is also called the regime's foreign minister.[3][2][4] Between 1976 and 1979 he went to several sessions of the UN General Assembly in New York and set out the party's position there.[1] In the BBC's account he was often the only point of contact that the country's rulers had with other nations.[2]

In the BBC's report, he was said to have persuaded many educated Cambodians to come home after they had fled the Khmer Rouge.[2] Many of those who came back were then tortured and executed in the purge of intellectuals.[2] In The Cambodia Daily's account, historians have held him responsible for arrests of foreign ministry officials who were later executed.[6]

Flight and the 1979 sentence

In January 1979, as Vietnamese troops closed on the capital, he fled Phnom Penh and met Nuon Chea, Pol Pot and Khieu Samphan in Pursat (ពោធិ៍សាត់).[1] In August 1979 he was convicted of genocide in absentia and, with Pol Pot, sentenced to death.[1][7] In the court's profile and The Phnom Penh Post's report, the sentence came from the People's Revolutionary Tribunal; in Al Jazeera's report, Vietnam sentenced both men after it invaded Cambodia and overthrew the Khmer Rouge.[1][7][4]

Defection and pardon

In August 1996, as the Khmer Rouge began to break up, he went over to the government.[1][2] Thousands of fighters went with him, and in Al Jazeera's account the move was a fatal blow to the movement.[4] In September 1996 King Norodom Sihanouk pardoned him for the 1979 sentence and granted him an amnesty from prosecution under a 1994 law that outlawed the Democratic Kampuchea Group and made membership in the Khmer Rouge a crime.[1][7] Pailin (ប៉ៃលិន) had been his stronghold.[6]

Case 002

In September 2007 his family said he was ready to face the tribunal and was in Phnom Penh, and that the 1996 pardon should protect him from prosecution.[6] He was arrested in November 2007 on the order of the Co-Investigating Judges. The day differs: November 14, 2007 in the court's profile, and November 12, 2007 in the court's 2013 release and the Co-Prosecutors' release.[1][5][8]

The Co-Investigating Judges indicted him on September 15, 2010.[1][8] The charges were genocide, by killing members of the Vietnamese and Cham groups; crimes against humanity, among them murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, imprisonment and torture; and grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, among them wilful killing.[1][9] The judges found enough evidence to send him to trial on a set of points, which were grounds for trial and not a verdict.[1] They found that he was in charge of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and part of a joint criminal enterprise with the party's leaders.[1] They found that he drew up and carried out the directive of March 30, 1976, which handed down to others the power to kill enemies and to "re-educate" "bad elements".[1] They found that he took part in recalling intellectuals and officials from abroad, most of whom were sent for re-education when they came back.[1] They also found that he knew of and joined in arrests of cadres, many of them later killed at S-21, and that he ran several re-education offices in Phnom Penh.[1] Last, they found that he endorsed the killing of the "seven traitors", and that he knew of and contributed to the persecution and mass killing of the Vietnamese.[1]

In 2011 the Pre-Trial Chamber ruled unanimously that the amnesty covered only the sentence passed in 1979 and did not stop new prosecutions. It also found that a new trial would not be double jeopardy, because the 1979 trial had not been held by an impartial and independent tribunal.[7] His trial opened on November 21, 2011, with Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan and Ieng Thirith as co-accused.[8][7] In the BBC's account he, Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan all denied the charges.[2] The regime's death toll differs by source: up to two million in BBC News's report, nearly two million in UN News's, and about 1.7 million in Al Jazeera's and NPR's.[2][3][4][9]

Death

He had been taken to hospital several times while in detention, and local and international medical experts were due to assess his fitness for trial later in March 2013.[5][3] On March 4, 2013 he went into hospital in Phnom Penh, at the Khmer-Soviet Friendship Hospital, and died there on the morning of March 14, aged 87.[5][8][4] That day the Trial Chamber ruled that his death ended every criminal and civil action against him before the court.[3]

The cause of death was first unclear. In the Associated Press report carried by NPR on March 14, the cause was not known at once, though he had a history of heart trouble and high blood pressure.[9] On April 2, 2013 the Co-Prosecutors, who must establish the cause of death of anyone who dies in the court's custody, concluded that he died of natural causes.[8] The cause was irreversible cardiogenic shock, from an ischaemic heart condition he had had since before his arrest.[8] They found nothing suspicious and judged that no autopsy or blood test was needed.[8]

A lawyer for the victims, Elisabeth Simonneau Fort, said that "by death, Ieng Sary escapes justice". Anne Heindel, a legal adviser at the Documentation Center of Cambodia, called his death "a tremendous loss" for how Cambodia understands its own history.[4]

References 9
  1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 1.16 1.17 1.18 1.19 1.20 1.21 1.22 1.23 1.24 1.25 Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, Ieng Sary (undated)
  2. ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 BBC News, Khmer Rouge senior leader Ieng Sary dies (March 14, 2013)
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 UN News, Cambodia: UN-backed genocide court terminates charges after death of accused (March 14, 2013)
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 Al Jazeera, Khmer Rouge 'Brother Number 3' dies (March 14, 2013)
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, Accused person Ieng Sary dies (March 14, 2013)
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 The Cambodia Daily, Ieng Sary Is Ready For KR Trial: Family (September 27, 2007)
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 The Phnom Penh Post, Royal pardon no saviour (April 13, 2011)
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 8.6 Co-Prosecutors of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, Press release (April 2, 2013)
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 NPR, Co-Founder Of Khmer Rouge Dies; Ieng Sary Escapes Judgment For Genocide (March 14, 2013)


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This page was last edited on 14 November 2026, at 16:21.