EU donates €3.5M to the KR Tribunal

Niem Chheng | Publication date 26 June 2018 | 10:44 ICT

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Kaing Guek Eav was the first person tried at the KRT. NHET SOKHENG /ECCC/AFP

The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) announced on Monday that the European Union (EU) has pledged a total of €3.5 million ($4.1 million) to support it in 2018, according to its press officer, Neth Peaktra.

Of the €3.5 million, €2.5 million is intended for the international section and €1.25 is reserved for the national side of the hybrid court, he added.

The ECCC, also known as the Khmer Rouge Tribunal (KRT), was established in 2006 and charged with trying senior members of the Khmer Rouge regime, which was responsible for as many two million deaths in Cambodia between 1975 and its overthrow by Vietnamese troops in 1979.

Peaktra said the EU has been one of the biggest donors to the ECCC, having contributed €22.7 million since the chambers’ inception.

He said for 2018, the approved budget for the ECCC’s national component was $5.79 million, with the Cambodian government pledging $4 million, which, along with the EU’s grant, would nearly cover all of it.

Peaktra said the international side needs $34.95 million to cover the 2018-2019 period.

“The hearing of Case 002/02 against Nuon Chea [second in command in the Khmer Rouge regime] and Khieu Samphan [the former head of state] for crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide ended last June . . . The trial chambers are currently preparing the verdict for the case, which will be presented at the end of the third quarter of 2018,” Peaktra said, adding that the remaining cases were still under review.

Besides Samphan and Chea, both of whom were convicted in an earlier trial and sentenced to life in prison, the KRT, which was established in 2006, has tried Kaing Guek Eav (aka Duch), who is serving life in prison for crimes against humanity; former foreign minister Ieng Sary, who died in 2013 while his trial was ongoing; and Ieng Thirith, former minister for social action, who was found unfit to stand trial in 2012 and died in 2015.