柬埔寨前红色高棉领导第二号领导人农谢否认对1970年代柬埔寨约170万人的死亡负有责任。他坚称，红色高棉领导人不是“坏人”。由联合国支持的战争罪法庭星期一开始在这期待已久的审判中听取证词。在金边的法院内座无虚席，农谢在法庭上作陈述。
85岁的农谢是红色高棉政权的首席理论家。同案被告前外交部长英萨利和前国家首脑乔森潘都对1975-1979年红色高棉统治期间犯下战争罪、种族灭绝和反人类罪的指控予以否认。红色高棉领导人波尔布特1998年去世。农谢坚持表示，没有柬埔寨人应为暴行负责。他寻求将罪责归咎于越南。越南在1978年入侵柬埔寨并在一年后推翻了红色高棉政权。预计乔森潘也将在今后两个星期内出庭受审。在上个月的开案陈述中，他把自己形容为一个柬埔寨爱国者，并没有注意到当时发生的大屠杀。
The former number two leader of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge regime is denying responsibility for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people during the 1970s, insisting that he and his comrades were not "bad people." Nuon Chea's testimony came Monday in a packed courtroom in Phnom Penh, as a United Nations-backed war crimes tribunal began hearing evidence in the long-awaited trial.
The 85-year-old Nuon Chea, who was chief ideologue for the communist movement, and his co-defendants ((former foreign minister Ieng Sary and ex-head of state Khieu Samphan)) all deny charges of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity during the regime's 1975-1979 reign. Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot died in 1998. Nuon Chea insisted that no Cambodian was responsible for atrocities. He sought to shift the blame to Vietnam, which invaded Cambodia in 1978 and toppled the Khmer Rouge regime a year later. Khieu Samphan also is expected to testify within the next two weeks. In opening remarks last month, he identified himself as a Cambodian patriot who was unaware of the mass killings at the time.
