Beijing denies Pol Pot is in China

The Chinese Foreign Ministry has denied reports that the former Cambodian dictator Pol Pot has fled to China.

Last week the Thai foreign minister Surin Pitsuwan said he had received reports that Pol Pot had left the jungle of northern Cambodia, where his Khmer Rouge colleagues had put him under house arrest; a Cambodian opposition commander loyal to the ousted co-prime minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh told the BBC that he was in China.

The Chinese embassy in Phnom Penh denied the reports at the time; now a spokeswoman for the Chinese foreign ministry in Beijing has called them groundless, adding that it was well-known that China had broken off its contacts with the Khmer Rouge.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service