Oct 27, 2010
DPA
Phnom Penh - The United Nations said Wednesday that Cambodia's Khmer Rouge tribunal must be free from political interference and insisted all parties respect the judicial process.
That was in reaction to comments by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, who told UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon on Wednesday that the international war crimes court would only be allowed to prosecute four Khmer Rouge leaders currently in custody.
UN spokesman Yves Sorokobi said Ban, who is in Cambodia on an official visit, had told Hun Sen at their meeting that deciding who to prosecute remained the responsibility of the court.
'We have to give [court officials] the space that they need to make the proper decision,' Sorokobi said. 'There should be no political interference with their work.'
Earlier on Wednesday Hun Sen told Ban he wanted the UN's human rights office to close, something Sorokobi said the secretary-general would take into consideration, since the presence of a human rights office was a matter of mutual agreement.
But when it came to Hun Sen's demand that the UN fire the country head of its Cambodian human rights office, Sorokobi said that was an entirely different matter.
'Pulling staff out of a particular country or not is a matter of internal personnel issues,' he said. 'In the meantime we fully stand by the work of the human rights commissioner and by her representatives around the world including here.'
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