Long-awaited trial of Khmer Rouge leaders gets underway

The Tuol Sleng Museum, Phnom Penh, Cambodia (Go there. You won't go back. BT) ========

The most complex since the Nuremberg trials.

Will involve a series of mini-trials with the first, which began Monday expected to last two years.

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Three defendants were present in court on Monday to hear the array of charges read out against them: genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.

They looked on impassively Monday as the prosecution presented harrowing stories of execution, rape, torture and suffering.

In effect the defendants are accused of devising the policies that led to the deaths of as many as 2.2 million people during the Khmer Rouge's rule of Cambodia between 1975 and 1979.

'No parallel in the modern era'

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