Nuon Chea, one of the architects of the Cambodian genocide that wiped out a quarter of his countrymen, has died in Phnom Penh, aged 93.
ADVERTISEMENTNuon Chea, one of the architects of the Cambodian genocide that wiped out a quarter of his countrymen, has died in Phnom Penh, aged 93.
As so-called Brother Number Two, Nuon Chea was the right-hand man of the notorious Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, who ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979.
When Pol Pot died in the jungle in 1998, Nuon Chea surrendered.
He subsequently cut a deal with the Cambodian government of Hun Sen and lived quietly with his family in forests along the border with Thailand until his arrest in 2007.
Last year, four decades after presiding over mass atrocities, a UN-backed court found him guilty of genocide, responsible for the deaths of up to 2.2 million people.
Most of the victims died of starvation, torture, exhaustion or disease in labour camps. Others were bludgeoned to death during mass executions.
As Deputy Secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, Nuon Chea was in charge of party and state security.
This included Phnom Penh's notorious S-21 interrogation and torture centre set up in the capital's Tuol Sleng high school – which now houses the genocide museum.
Two days before the Vietnamese army overran Phnom Penh, Nuon Chea ordered all remaining prisoners to be killed. As many as 14,000 people were tortured and executed there.
Nuon Chea remained defiant until the end. He never admitted his guilt.