Ieng Sary during a pre-trial detention hearing on 11 February 2010

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Ieng Sary (Khmer: អៀង សារី, born October 24, 1924,^[1] Loeung Va, Tra Vinh) was a powerful figure in the Khmer Rouge. He was the Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Democratic Kampuchea from 1975 to 1979 and held several senior positions in the Khmer Rouge until his defection to the government in 1996.

Early years[link]

Of Khmer ancestry on his father's side, and Chinese ancestry on his mother's,^[2][3] Ieng Sary was born in Chau Thanh, Tra Vinh province, southern Vietnam. Sary changed his name from the Vietnamese Kim Trang when he joined the Khmer Rouge. He is the brother-in-law by marriage of the Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot (real name: Saloth Sar). Sary and Saloth Sar studied at Phnom Penh's Lycée Sisowath where their future wives, the sisters Khieu Thirith and Khieu Ponnary also studied. Before leaving Cambodia to study in Paris, Sary was engaged to Khieu Thirith.^[4]

Sary and Saloth Sar also studied together in Paris. Whilst there, Sary rented an apartment in the Latin Quarter, a hotbed of student radicalism. He and Saloth Sar met with French communist intellectuals, and formed their own cell of Cambodian communists.

Sary and Khieu Thirith married in the town hall of Paris' 15th arrondissement the summer of 1951 and Thirith took her husband's name, becoming Ieng Thirith.^[4]

Midlife[link]

After returning to Cambodia, he was inducted into the Central Committee of the Workers Party of Kampuchea in September 1960.^[4]

After the fall of the Khmer Republic on 17 April 1975, Sary made personal appeals to expatriates (the well-educated Cambodians who had survived the prison death camps, and had afterwards moved abroad and others who wanted to come back to Cambodia homeland) to help rebuild Cambodia. However upon returning to Cambodia, they were arrested on arrival, and thrown into brutal detention centres.^[5] Together with Pol Pot, Ieng Sary was sentenced to death in absentia after the Khmer Rouge had been overthrown in 1979.

The then Cambodian King Norodom Sihanouk officially pardoned Ieng Sary in 1996. He was the founder of the Democratic National Union Movement, a split from the Cambodian National Unity Party.^[6]

Arrest and Trial[link]

Ieng Sary, reportedly living in "an opulent Phnom Penh villa surrounded by security guards and barbed wire"^[7] was arrested on November 12, 2007 in Phnom Penh on an arrest warrant from the Cambodia Tribunal^[8] for war crimes and crimes against humanity. His wife, Ieng Thirith, was also arrested for crimes against humanity.^[9]

On 16 December 2009, the tribunal officially charged him with genocide for his involvement with the subjugation and murder of Vietnamese and Muslim minorities in Cambodia.^[10] Ieng Sary is represented by Ang Udom and Michael G. Karnavas; see defense website: iengsarydefence

References[link]

External links[link]

• http://www.seasite.niu.edu/khmer/Ledgerwood/biographies.htm
• Cambodia Tribunal Monitor
• iengsarydefence

v t e Prominent members of the Khmer Rouge Pol Pot | Khieu Samphan | Nuon Chea | Ta Mok | Son Sen | Ieng Sary | Hu Nim | Hou Yuon | Khang Khek Ieu | Ieng Thirith | Ke Pauk

Ieng Thirith (2011)

Ieng Thirith (born 1932, Battambang Province)^[1] was an influential figure in the Khmer Rouge, but was neither a member of the Khmer Rouge Standing Committee nor of the Central Committee.^[2] Her original name is Khieu Thirith.^[3] Ieng Thirith is the wife of Ieng Sary, the former minister of foreign affairs of Democratic Kampuchea's Khmer Rouge regime.

She is the sister of Khieu Ponnary (died in 2003), the first wife of Pol Pot. Thirith was the Minister of Social Action during the regime.^[4] She was arrested by the Extraordinary Chamber in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) in November 2007 with her husband, Ieng Sary as suspect of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Early years[link]

Born Khieu Thirith in northwestern Cambodia's Battambang Province, she came from a relatively wealthy and privileged family, and was the second daughter of a Cambodian judge who abandoned the family during World War II, running off to Battambang with a Cambodian princess.^[5]

Thirith graduated from the Lycée Sisowath in Phnom Penh, and while still in Cambodia, she became engaged to Ieng Sary, who attended Lycée in the year above her. She went on to Paris with her sister where she studied English Literature majoring in Shakespeare at the Sorbonne. She became the first Cambodian to achieve a degree in English Literature. Thirith married Ieng Sary in the town hall of Paris' 15th arrondissement the summer of 1951 and took her husband's name, becoming Ieng Thirith.^[5] Her older sister, Khieu Ponnary, later became the wife of Pol Pot. Together the two sisters and their husbands later became known as 'Cambodia's Gang of Four', a reference to the radical group led by Jiang Qing the widow of Mao Tse-tung.^[6]

Midlife[link]

She returned to her native Cambodia in 1957 and worked as a professor before founding a private English school in 1960.^[1]

She was a senior member of the Democratic Kampuchea (DK) regime. From 1975 to 1979 Thirith was Minister of Social Affairs and Action and Head of Democratic Kampuchea's Red Cross Society.

Later years[link]

Thirith lived with her husband Ieng Sary in a luxurious villa on Street 21 in southern Phnom Penh.^[7] Until her arrest, she was rarely seen in public.

Thirith on trial in 2011.

By 2006, Ieng Thirith and her husband had retained foreign legal counsel to assist with their defense as the Cambodia Tribunal made progress with courtroom preparation and judge selection.^[7] She was arrested, along with ailing Ieng Sary,^[8] on November 12, 2007, at their home in Phnom Penh, after being indicted by the Cambodia Tribunal.^[9] She was arrested for crimes against humanity:^[10] "planning, direction, coordination and ordering of widespread purges ... and the unlawful killing or murder of staff members from within the Ministry of Social Affairs."^[1] On November 17, 2011, Thirith was ruled mentally unfit to stand trial, due to her severe case of Alzheimer's Disease, and was ordered to be released.^[11] Prosecutors have appealed against her release.^[12] On December 13, 2011, appeals judges reversed the ruling to release Thirith and ordered new medical exams to see how mentally unfit she was to stand trial.^[13]

References[link]

• Philip Short. Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare. Henry Holt and Company, 2005.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Ieng Thirith

• Photos- on afp.google.com
• Cambodia Tribunal Monitor

v t e Prominent members of the Khmer Rouge Pol Pot | Khieu Samphan | Nuon Chea | Ta Mok | Son Sen | Ieng Sary | Hu Nim | Hou Yuon | Khang Khek Ieu | Ieng Thirith | Ke Pauk