Summons to colleagues won't help justice: Hun Sen

In this photo taken, Sept. 14, 2009, Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen gestures as he takes a tour to a construction site of a Chinese-funded bridge at Prek Kdam village, some 30 kilometers north of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith

Thursday Oct. 8, 2009
The Associated Press

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Thursday he doubts whether summoning six of his colleagues to testify at the country's Khmer Rouge genocide tribunal will help the cause of justice.

The UN-assisted tribunal announced Wednesday that it was calling the country's current foreign minister, finance minister, national assembly president, senate president and two other senators to testify before the tribunal's investigating judge.

All are top members of Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party but also exercised some authority when the communist Khmer Rouge held power in 1975-79. Hun Sen himself once served as a Khmer Rouge officer and many of his main allies are former members of the group.

The tribunal is seeking justice for the estimated 1.7 million people who died in Cambodia from execution, overwork, disease and malnutrition as a result of the group's radical policies.

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