Khmer Rouge judges begin work

The judges have been sworn in, but any trials are still months away

A team of Cambodian and foreign judges are beginning the long process of bringing former Khmer Rouge leaders to trial.

A day after being sworn in at a ceremony in Phnom Penh, the 17 Cambodian and 10 foreign judges met for the first of four days of workshops.

"They will discuss the milestones and critical activities for year one," said tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath.

Investigations will begin next week, with trials starting in 2007.

Some 1.7m people are thought to have died during Cambodia's harsh Khmer Rouge regime, between 1975 and 1979.

Slow process

Many people had begun to fear that the trials would never get off the ground.

Since Cambodia first asked the United Nations for help in 1997, the government has been reluctant to commit resources, and foreign donors have provided much of the funding.

STILL FREE Nuon Chea: 80, chief lieutenant to Pol Pot, most senior surviving member of regime Khieu Samphan: 74, head of state 1976-79. Pol Pot and Ieng Sary both married members of his family Ieng Sary: Age unknown, foreign minister 1976-78. Said to be suffering serious heart condition Key Khmer Rouge figures

In 2003, Cambodia and the UN agreed jointly to convene the trials, but many analysts said the process could be undermined by the dire state of Cambodia's judicial system, which was badly debilitated by the Khmer Rouge policy of targeting the intelligentsia for extermination.

But now a complex formula of majority voting by both Cambodian and international judicial officials has been devised, to try to ensure that tribunal decisions are backed by both sides.

Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot died in 1998. At present two former regime leaders, Ta Mok and Kang Keng Ieu, more commonly known as Duch, are in jail on genocide charges.

But others, including Pol Pot's "Brother Number Two" Nuon Chea, former head of state Khieu Samphan and former Foreign Minister Ieng Sary live freely in Cambodia.

Nuon Chea told the Associated Press on Monday that he would go before the tribunal if called, in order to clarify the past.

"I will be glad to go, so that people in my country and other countries will know the truth of what happened. Whatever they ask, I will tell them," he said.