Key Khmer Rouge leader arrested

November 12, 2007

The couple were arrested at their luxury Phnom Penh villa, where they've lived freely for more than 10-years. Both were members of the Khmer Rouge's inner circle. Two key figures are already in custody awaiting trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly carried out during the Chinese-backed group's genocidal rule in the 1970s, which killed about a quarter of the Cambodian population. A U.N. tribunal was established last year after a decade of delays to bring surviving leaders, who are now mostly in their 80s, to justice. But the Khmer Rouge leader will not be among them: Pol Pot died in 1998 at his jungle hideout in northern Cambodia.