The Phnom Penh Post

An indignant Jacques Verges halted Khieu Samphan's bail hearing last week, refusing to participate until all relevant documents were translated into French.

The animated defense attorney threatened to lodge complaints with the UN Human Rights Council and French authorities "to tell them of the contempt with which French is treated before this tribunal."

The judges delayed the former Khmer Rouge head of state's April 23 hearing to an unspecified date. They also issued a warning to Verges.

The lawyer "has abused the processes of the pre-trial chamber and the rights of the charged person," the judges wrote of his behavior. Verges, wearing a traditional French attorney's robe - long and black with a white cravat - claimed the judges had suggested Samphan find a new international lawyer.

"This is a scandal!" he told reporters during an impromptu press conference. "This never happens except in dictatorships!"

Verges is famous for his notorious client roster, including Nazi Gestapo officer Klaus Barbie and Venezuelan terrorist Carlos the Jackal. He and Samphan knew each other when the two were both students in Paris.

Meanwhile, Khieu Samphan's wife, So Socheat, was a much more reticent presence. Her hair pulled back in a conservative bun, she quietly answered reporters' questions outside the ECCC chambers, defending her husband's innocence.

"I think it's just politics," she said of the court. "It's just revenge."