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PHNOM PENH : Cambodian and foreign judges Wednesday approved rules for the UN-backed Khmer Rouge tribunal, clearing the way for the court to begin work after repeated delays to the country's genocide trials.
The decision, which ends months of infighting, is the first concrete step toward prosecuting one of the worst atrocities of the 20th century since court officials were sworn in last July.
"These rules will ensure us ... fair and transparent trials," co-prosecutor Robert Petit told reporters, adding they had been adopted unanimously.
"Now that the rules are adopted, we can move forward."
The rules are essential because they govern every aspect of the tribunal's operations, but previous agreement had been held up by wrangling over legal fees and other procedures.
Jurists at the tribunal praised Wednesday's agreement and vowed to get quickly to work.
"We are aware that the world's eyes are on these cases," said Cambodian co-prosecutor Chea Leang.
Concerns about the rights of suspects -- particularly whether steep legal fees would limit their access to lawyers -- were among the issues that had held up adoption of the rules.
But Richard Rogers, with the office of the defence, said the rules would ensure a fair trial for leaders of the 1970s regime that left up to two million people dead.
"The rules include all the fundamental rights that those accused need for a fair trial. That's a very good start for the defence," he said.
The first trials had initially been expected this year, but the delays mean trials are unlikely to start before early 2008, officials say.
Cambodian and foreign prosecutors who have been building cases since last year would probably send those files to investigating judges within weeks, Petit said.
"The process is going to get underway in the next couple of weeks," he said, while refusing to disclose how many cases would be included in his first submission.
The rules dispute had dragged on since November, with the 29 international and Cambodian jurists failing three times to approve the rules before meeting for a final session last week.
The 56.3-million-dollar tribunal's opening last year had already been delayed by a decade of often contentious negotiations between the United Nations and Cambodia, which finally reached agreement on the trials in 2003.
The repeated deadlocks raised concerns that the long-stalled tribunal would ultimately fail.
Quick trials are the last chance for Cambodians to find justice for crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge more than 30 years ago, with rights groups and legal advocates concerned that ageing former regime leaders will die before being brought to court.
So far only one possible defendant is in custody -- former Khmer Rouge prison chief Kaing Khek Iev, also known as Duch -- while several live freely in Cambodia.
Tribunal judges have never indicated who might be put on the dock, and the only other person to have been arrested for crimes committed during the regime, military commander Ta Mok, died in prison last July.
Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot died in 1998.
Up to two million people died of starvation and overwork, or were executed during the communist regime's 1975-1979 rule.
The Khmer Rouge abolished religion, schools and currency, exiling millions onto vast collective farms with the aim of creating an agrarian utopia.
- AFP /ls
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