The Phnom Penh Post

For those of you in the New York area, a series of panels on justice issues in Southeast Asia will be held at Columbia University this coming Friday and Saturday. A Saturday afternoon panel will focus on Cambodia and feature presentations from Sophal Ear (U.S. Naval Postgraduate School), John Ciorciari (University of Michigan), Alex Hinton (Rutgers University) and Lorraine Paterson (Cornell University). More information is available here.

International Co-Prosecutor Andrew Cayley gave an interesting presentation at Rutgers on Wednesday, but unfortunately, he did not want to comment on the record about allegations of political interference at the tribunal (particularly in relation to Cases 003 and 004). It would be safe to say, however, in the comments he did make, Cayley expressed "very grave concerns" about the conduct of Cases 003 and 004, as reported in today's Post.

Moreover, Cayley referenced the recent decisions by the Pre-Trial Chamber related to his appeal against a retraction order related to Case 003. Although the chamber found against his appeal, the vote regarding the civil party application of New Zealander Rob Hamill was split along national/international lines, with international judges writing a substantial dissenting opinion questioning the integrity of the Co-Investigating Judges' conduct in Case 003. Read more about it here.

In a public statement released Thursday, Cayley quoted extensively from this dissenting opinion, listing the following findings of the international judges:

Amid renewed challenges to the credibility of the Khmer Rouge tribunal, international Co-Prosecutor Andrew Cayley will be speaking at Rutgers later this month. The event is scheduled for October 26 and will take place in the Newark Center for Law and Justice. It will be interesting to see how Cayley responds to questions related to recent controversies surrounding investigation of Cases 003 and 004.

In a recent opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal, law professor John Hall called out the tribunal's Cambodian co-prosecutor and investigating judges for seemingly obstructing investigations of additional cases. He writes that the lack of independence of the court from the Cambodian government (namely Prime Minister Hun Sen),

"has shown itself most evidently when the international community wanted to broaden the Tribunal beyond the five original defendants. Prime Minister Hun Sen has repeatedly voiced his opposition to broadening, on one occasion informing U.N. Secretary Ban Ki-moon that further prosecutions would not be 'allowed.' By impeding the Tribunal, Mr. Hun Sen is able to maintain political control of the process while also shaping the narrative of the Khmer Rouge era so that only a few individuals appear culpable.

The investigating judges at the Khmer Rouge tribunal released a list of 30 crime sites connected to the court’s controversial fourth case yesterday.

You can read their statement here and our coverage here. The list of sites released is as follows:

A) KAMPONG CHAM PROVINCE (CENTRAL ZONE) 

During her first meeting with Prime Minister Hun Sen in January, 2009, after becoming the US ambassador to Cambodia...

As one-time Funcinpec leader and National Assembly President Norodom Ranariddh was forced from the parliamentary leadership in 2006...

FURTHER evidence that the Cambodian government tried to limit the number of prosecutions at the Khmer Rouge tribunal...

The government planned to shut down the Open Society Justice Initiative...

DIPLOMATIC cables made public by WikiLeaks yesterday reveal simmering tensions within the ruling Cambodian People’s Party...

CAMBODIA and Thailand were nearing a resolution over the disputed oil blocks in the Gulf of Thailand just as Thaksin Shinawatra...