The Khmer Rouge tribunal co-prosecutors have accused Nuon Chea’s defence team of  “knowingly and wilfully” resisting a court order to identify evidence that they will use in his defence, a document released yesterday states.

With the KRT expected to convene substantive hearings in its second case before the end of the year, the Nuon Chea defence team has refused to identify which documents it will use in the trial, the statement says.

Instead, lawyers for former “Brother Number Two” Nuon Chea have stated that they will draw from the entire case file, which contains more than 18,000 documents.

“The Nuon Chea defence has presumed to confer upon itself the authority and powers of this court and to grant themselves an open, unlimited extension for identifying trial documents,” co-prosecutors Andrew Cayley and Chea Leang wrote.

They further argued that the Trial Chamber should either sanction Nuon Chea’s defence team by preventing them from introducing any documentary evidence at trial, or, alternatively, impose a two-week deadline to comply with the order.

Nuon Chea’s defence team argued in July that they were “neither required, nor able, at this time” to identify specific documents they would use in the trial and would disclose the documents “in due course”.

Jasper Pauw, a legal consultant for Nuon Chea, said yesterday: “We will file [a] response early next week, as required.”