Ieng Sary

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Ieng Sary (born October 24, 1925, Loeung Va, Tra Vinh) was a powerful figure in the Khmer Rouge. He was the Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Democratic Kampuchea from 1975 to 1979 and held several senior positions in the Khmer Rouge until his defection to the government in 1996.

1 Early years
2 Midlife
3 Later years
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Early years

Of Khmer ancestry on his father's side, and Chinese ancestry on his mother's,^[1] Ieng Sary was born in southwestern Vietnam bordering Cambodia and changed his name from the Vietnamese Kim Trang when he joined the Khmer Rouge. He is the brother-in-law by marriage, of the Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot (real name: Saloth Sar). Sary and Saloth Sar studied at Phnom Penh's Lycée Sisowath where their future wives, the sisters Khieu Thirith and Khieu Ponnary also studied. Before leaving Cambodia to study in Paris, Sary was engaged to Khieu Thirith.^[2]

Sary and Saloth Sar also studied together in Paris. Whilst there, Sary rented an apartment in the Latin Quarter, a hotbed of student radicalism. He and Saloth Sar met with French communist intellectuals, and formed their own cell of Cambodian communists.

Sary and Khieu Thirith married in the town hall of Paris' 15th arrondissement the summer of 1951 and Thirith took her husband's name, becoming Ieng Thirith.^[2]

[edit] Midlife

After returning to Cambodia, he was inducted into the Central Committee of the Workers Party of Kampuchea in September 1960.^[2]

Cambodian King Norodom Sihanouk officially pardoned Ieng Sary in 1996.

[edit] Later years

On February 17, 2006, Radio Australia carried a report saying that Ieng Sary had been hospitalized in Bangkok, Thailand, 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."

He was arrested on November 12, 2007 at his home in Phnom Penh on an arrest warrant from the Cambodia Tribunal^[3] for war crimes and crimes against humanity. His wife, Ieng Thirith, was also arrested for crimes against humanity.^[4] On February 4, 2008, he was taken to Calmette Hospital for treatment of a problem in his urinary tract, according to his lawyer. A spokesman for the Tribunal said that he had already been hospitalized once before in the previous ten days.^[5]

[edit] References

^ Ieng Sary's Brief Biography; Ieng Sary, Howard J. De Nike, John B. Quigley, Kenneth J. Robinson, Cambodia Tribunal Populaire Revolutionnaire, Helen Jarvis, Nereida Cross. Genocide in Cambodia: Documents from the Trial from of Pol Pot and Ieng Sary (Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights) (Hardcover). University of Pennsylvania Press, 90. ISBN 0812235398. ; Jurisdictional and Definitional Issues
^ ^a ^b ^c David P. Chandler (1999). Brother Number One: A Political Biography of Pol Pot (ISBN 0813335108). p.32. Westview Press. Retrieved on 2007-11-15.
^ Ed Johnson and Paul Tighe, "Khmer Rouge Foreign Minister Arrested in Cambodia", Bloomberg.com, November 12, 2007.
^ "Ex-official of Khmer Rouge and wife arrested for crimes against humanity", Associated Press (International Herald Tribune), November 12, 2007.
^ "Former Khmer Rouge foreign minister, detained for trial, taken to hospital", Associated Press (International Herald Tribune), February 4, 2008.