The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia has sentenced two Khmer Rouge officials to life imprisonment. They are Cambodian head of state Khieu Samphan, 87, and Nuon Chea, 92, his right-hand man. They were convicted of genocide for the extermination of Cham Muslims and Vietnamese communities. This is the first genocide verdict since Pol Pot’s brief but brutal regime (1975-79). Over two million people were killed in this small Southeast Asian country in pursuit of the utopia of a proletarian, autarchic, agricultural government.
