Ieng Sary

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ieng Sary [the initial letter of the first name is "I" as in "income"] (born 1922 or 1925), a powerful figure in the Khmer Rouge was the deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Democratic Kampuchea from 1975 to 1979.

He was born in South Western Vietnam bordering Cambodia and changed his name from the vietnamese Kim Trang when he joined the Khmer Rouge. He was the brother-in-law of the Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot. Ieng Sary and Pol Pot studied together in Paris. Whilst there, Sary rented an apartment in the Latin Quarter, a hotbed of student radicalism. He and Pol Pot met with French communist intellectuals, and formed their own cell of Cambodian communists. This nucleus was the foundation of the Khmer Rouge leadership that would take control of the country in 1975.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Contemporary sightings

On February 17, 2006, Radio Australia carried a report saying that Ieng Sary had been hospitalized in Bangkok after a serious heart attack. A newspaper article on May 28, 2006 reported that he "lives in an opulent Phnom Penh villa surrounded by security guards and barbed wire."