Ieng Thirith

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Ieng Thirith is a member of the Khmer Rouge Central Committee.

Born Khieu Thirith around 1922 in Battambang Province. She came from a relatively wealthy and privileged family and was the second daughter of a Cambodian judge. Her older sister Khieu Ponnary later became the wife of Saloth Sar (Pol Pot).

Thirth graduated from the Lycée Sisowath in Phnom Penh and later went to Paris with her sister where she studied English Literature majoring in Shakespeare, at the Sorbonne. She became the first Cambodian to achieve a degree in English Literature. While studying In Paris, she met and pursued Ieng Sary who had also attended Sisowath High School in the year above her. Khieu Thirith married Ieng Sary in a Paris ballroom in 1951.

Thirith took her husband's name and became Ieng Thirith. She was a senior member of the Democratic Kampuchea (DK) regime. From 1975 to 1979 Thirith was Minister of Social Affairs and Head of Democratic Kampuchea's Red Cross Society.

Currently, Thirith lives with her husband Ieng Sary in a luxurious villa in Phnom Penh. She is rarely seen in public.