Reports from Cambodia say the former Khmer Rouge leader, Pol Pot, has fled the country and is now in China.

General Nhiek Bun Chhay, an opposition commander loyal to Cambodia's ousted co-prime minister Prince Ranariddh, told the BBC Pol Pot had left the jungles of northern Cambodia to avoid the prospect of having to face an international tribunal for genocide.

The reports, which have also appeared in the Cambodian press, have been denied by the Chinese embassy in Phnom Penh and by the Cambodian authorities.

Chinese government officials dismissed the reports as propaganda from opposition forces who have been fighting the government with assistance from the Khmer Rouge rebels.

Pol Pot was reported to have been held under house arrest after a show trial last July by his former Khmer Rouge colleagues.

More than one million Cambodians died of murder, overwork, disease or starvation during the regime in the 1970s, and the United Nations is examining ways Pol Pot might be brought to justice if he were ever handed over.

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