Cambodia's United Nations-backed war crimes court has issued genocide charges for the first time.
Tribunal spokesman Lars Olsen says charges have been laid against two former lead
ers of the Khmer Rouge regime.
PHOTO
![Final arguments were heard last month in the trial of prison chief Comrade Duch, who is charged with war crimes. [ABC]](http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200911/r477344_2414018.jpg "Final arguments were heard last month in the trial of prison chief Comrade Duch, who is charged with war crimes. [ABC]")
Final arguments were heard last month in the trial of prison chief Comrade Duch, who is charged with war crimes. [ABC]
Khmer Rouge number two Nuon Chea and Foreign Minister Ieng Sary are both charged over the the slaughter of Vietnamese people and ethnic Cham muslims during the 1970s.
Mr Olsen says both men have been brought before the investigating judges and informed they are being charged with genocide.
Indictment
Investigators will now see if there is enough evidence to file an indictment against the men, who are now in their 80s.
Reach Sambath, a spokesman at the trial, says the public has been wanting the accused leaders to be charged with genocide.
"People throughout the country they talk about genocide," he says.
"When the court was established there were no charges regarding genocide, so this is something new to the people of Cambodia."
The court announced in November it was investigating incursions into Vietnam, as well as executions of Cambodia's Cham minority by the 1975-1979 regime.
Nuon Chea and Ieng Sary have already been charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity.
They are in detention at the court.