PHNOM PENH: Four top leaders of the brutal Khmer Rouge regime are to go on trial for genocide at Cambodia's UN-backed war crimes court in a case described as the world's most complex in decades.
The trial, seen as vital to healing the traumatised nation's deep scars, has been long awaited by survivors of a regime that wiped out nearly a quarter of the population during its reign of terror in the late 1970s.
It follows the conviction of a Khmer Rouge prison chief last year in the court's first case.
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The elderly defendants - ''Brother Number Two'' Nuon Chea, the former head of state Khieu Samphan, the former foreign minister Ieng Sary and the former social affairs minister Ieng Thirith - are to appear at an initial hearing tomorrow.
They face a string of charges, including genocide, over the deaths of up to two million people from starvation, overwork and torture, or execution, during the regime's rule from 1975 to 1979.
The genocide charges relate specifically to the killings of Vietnamese people and Muslims belonging to the Cham ethnic group.
All four deny the accusations and the trial, the tribunal's second, will probably take years.
''It's the most important trial that will ever be heard in this court,'' the international co-prosecutor Andrew Cayley said.
''There hasn't been a case as large and complex as this since Nuremberg,'' he said, referring to the landmark Nazi trials after World War II.
The initial hearing is scheduled to take place over four days and will focus on expert and witness lists and preliminary legal objections.
Full testimony from the elderly accused, who have been in detention since their arrests in 2007, is not expected until August at the earliest.
It is the culmination of years of preparation by the war crimes tribunal, which was established in 2006 after almost 10 years of negotiations between Cambodia and the United Nations.
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