\n Hundreds of former Khmer Rouge cadres Monday attended the funeral of the one-time \"first lady\" of the murderous Cambodian regime, but victims expressed sadness she would now escape justice.\n<\/p>\n
\n Between 200-300 people attended religious rites and prayers for Ieng Thirith, who was charged but never fully prosecuted for crimes against humanity by a UN-backed tribunal. She died on Saturday aged 83.\n<\/p>\n
\n Her trial in 2012 for genocide and crimes against humanity was suspended due to ill health.\n<\/p>\n
\n The body was cremated late Monday in Pailin, a former Khmer Rouge stronghold on the Thai border where many regime leaders settled after they were ousted by a Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in 1979.\n<\/p>\n
\n Ieng Thirith was among only a handful of people ever brought to court over atrocities during the Khmer Rouge era.\n<\/p>\n
\n The suspension of her trial was a bitter blow to many who survived the regime, which killed up to two million people by starvation, overwork or outright execution.\n<\/p>\n
\n She had been held under judicial supervision from the suspension of her trial until her death, and the charges against her were never dropped.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"People still respect and love her,\" Sok Nguon, 65, a former Khmer Rouge fighter attending the funeral, told AFP by telephone.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"We came to see her off for the final time. I pray for her to be freed from any sins.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n Ieng Thirith, the sister-in-law of late Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, served as the regime's social affairs minister alongside her husband, then-foreign minister Ieng Sary.\n<\/p>\n
\n The couple, along with Pol Pot and his wife Khieu Ponnary, became the ideological centre of an ultra-Maoist movement that unleashed unprecedented destruction in the late 1970s.\n<\/p>\n
\n Ieng Sary, with whom she had four children, died in 2013 aged 87 before a verdict was delivered in his trial.\n<\/p>\n
\n Her death dismayed some victims of a regime which between 1975-79 wiped out nearly a quarter of Cambodia's population in an attempt to create a communist agrarian utopia.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"During the Pol Pot regime, there were no funerals for those who died, but there is a funeral for her -- this is another injustice,\" said Norng Chan Phal, 46, who lost his parents at Phnom Penh's notorious Tuol Sleng prison.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Now she has escaped from her crimes.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n Family ties helped Ieng Thirith reach the upper echelons of power in a murderous totalitarian regime that tore children from parents and husbands from wives and emptied cities by driving residents into the countryside.\n<\/p>\n
\n A small number of top Khmer Rouge leaders have been convicted, including \"Brother Number Two\" Nuon Chea, 88, and ex-head of state Khieu Samphan, 83.\n<\/p>\n
\n The pair are also undergoing a second trial at the UN-backed tribunal for genocide, centred on the killing of ethnic Vietnamese and Muslim minorities, forced marriage and rape.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Brother Number One\" Pol Pot died in 1998 without ever facing justice.\n<\/p>\n
\n In March the court charged three more former Khmer Rouge members with crimes against humanity, ignoring warnings by strongman Cambodian premier Hun Sen -- a mid-ranking regime cadre before he defected -- that further prosecutions risked reigniting conflict.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hundreds of former Khmer Rouge cadres Monday attended the funeral of the one-time \"first lady\" of the murderous Cambodian regime, but victims expressed sadness she would now escape justice. Between 200-300 people attended religious rites and prayers for Ieng Thirith, who was charged but never fully prosecuted for crimes against humanity by a UN-backed tribunal. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-1735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n