Ex-Khmer Rouge social affairs minister dies at age of 83

“The accused passed away at approximately 10.30 am (0330 GMT) on 22 August in Pailin, Cambodia”, the tribunal said in a statement.

The legal case against her was put on hold in 2012 after she was deemed unfit to stand trial because she had dementia.

Ieng Thirith graduated from the Lycee Sisowath in Phnom Penh before going to France for university, where she studied Shakespeare, according to the ECCC.

“Ieng Thirith was not a passive individual who became linked to the Khmer Rouge exclusively through her status as Ieng Sary’s wife and Pol Pot’s sister-in-law”, said Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia which researches the atrocities.

Her husband was former foreign secretary Ieng Sary, who died in 2013 at age 87, before the genocide case against him could reach a verdict.

Former head of state Khieu Samphan and chief ideologue Nuon Chea are now on trial at the Phnom Penh court, facing charges for a wide array of crimes, including genocide. “She remained under judicial supervision until her death”, the statement from the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) added.

Prosecutors had accused her of involvement in the “planning, direction, coordination and ordering of widespread purges”, and charged her with crimes against humanity, genocide, homicide, torture and religious persecution.

As many as two million Cambodians died from starvation, overwork and executions during the rule of the Khmer Rouge, which attempted to create an agrarian communist utopia.

Thirith was then released under judicial supervision but the charges were never dropped.

The UN-backed tribunal past year found the two other Khmer Rouge leaders guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced them to life imprisonment.

“She was the Minister of Social Affairs and she visited sites where people worked… she has seen the sicknesss and that’s why it is important what is left behind… the unknown position”.

She was arrested in 2007, along with her husband, and refused to co-operate with the court, consistently denying responsibility for the regime’s crimes.