Pol Pot's sister-in-law told Cambodia's Khmer Rouge "Killing Fields" court today she only worked with Chinese experts on humanitarian issues and had no hand in the deaths of the regime's estimated 1.7 million victims.
Ieng Thirith, 76, the ultra-Maoist movement's social minister, is charged with crimes against humanity but said she only oversaw teams rebuilding hospitals destroyed by the years of civil war that preceded the fall of Phnom Penh in 1975.
"I don't know why a good person like me has been accused of such crimes. I have suffered a great deal," she said during a bail hearing at the joint Cambodian-international court, which opened its first case last week against chief torturer Duch.
Duch's trial will resume on March 30th, the court said today, with at least 40 witnesses expected to testify against the former chief of Phnom Penh's S-21 prison, where an estimated 14,000 people were tortured and killed.
Five senior Khmer Rouge cadres have been charged with various crimes against humanity and could get life sentences if convicted by the court.
Duch, whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav, is the first to be tried by a panel of five Cambodian and international judges. His trial is expected to run until June.
No trial dates have been set for the others.
They are "Brother Number Two" Nuon Chea, former President Khieu Samphan, ex-foreign minister Ieng Sary and his wife Ieng Thirith. She is almost certain to lose her bail application.
"I have been wrongly accused. We worked very hard at the pharmaceutical factories. There were four factories and we had two Chinese experts helping us," she said.
Ieng Thirith blamed other senior cadres for the 1.7 million people who were executed or died of starvation, disease and overwork from 1975-79.
In particular, she said Nuon Chea, Pol Pot's right-hand man, ordered Duch to kill Cambodians who had graduated from universities and colleges in France, Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union.
Reuters