Khmer Rouge Trial: Court upholds previous verdicts

Cambodia's UN-backed Khmer Rouge war crimes court gave its final verdict yesterday, upholding the genocide conviction and life sentence imposed on the regime's last surviving leader. The tribunal was ruling on an appeal by Khieu Samphan, head of state for the murderous communist regime which wiped out a quarter of the Cambodian population in less than four years in the 1970s. The court also upheld the 2018 convictions against the 91-year-old for multiple crimes against humanity -- including murder, torture and enslavement  -- on the basis of a "joint criminal enterprise", even if he did not personally take part in all crimes. The hybrid court, with both Cambodian and international judges, was set up to try the senior leaders of the genocidal regime, which wiped out about two million people through starvation, torture, forced labour and mass executions during its 1975-79 rule.