PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - Cambodia's most senior surviving Khmer Rouge leader was arrested and charged with crimes against humanity on Wednesday -- three decades after the murderous regime left 1.7 million people dead through starvation, overwork and execution.
Khmer Rouge ideologist Nuon Chea, the top aide to late leader Pol Pot, was arrested at his home in northwestern Pailin near the Thai border and flown to Phnom Penh, where he was put in the custody of a U.N.-backed tribunal.
The tribunal is investigating abuses committed when the communist Khmer Rouge held power in 1975-79. A statement released by the tribunal said its judges had placed Nuon Chea in "provisional detention" after charging him "for crimes against humanity and war crimes."
"Now the time has come for him to share his version of the history of Khmer Rouge before the court of law," said Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, an independent group researching Khmer Rouge crimes.
"So many people have died. The facts are everywhere. There are plenty of mass graves, prisons, documents, photographs that can show what he did at that time," Youk Chhang said.
Police surrounded Nuon Chea's home and served him with an arrest warrant after closing off surrounding roads. Officers then took the 82-year-old -- who denies any wrongdoing -- into custody, as his son and dozens of onlookers watched in silence.
"My father is happy to shed light on the Khmer Rouge regime for the world and people to understand," said his son, Nuon Say.
Nuon Chea joined the Khmer Rouge in the 1950s in its formative stages as Cambodia's underground communist party, later becoming its chief political ideologue and right-hand man to Pol Pot.
Prosecutors for the tribunal have said there are five senior Khmer Rouge figures they have recommended be tried. Nuon Chea is the second, and highest-ranking, leader to be detained.
Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, who headed the former Khmer Rouge S-21 torture center, was the first suspect detained. He was charged on July 31 with crimes against humanity. The other suspects have not been publicly named.
Duch has implicated Nuon Chea in atrocities. According to a transcript of Duch's government interrogation after his arrest in 1999, he said Nuon Chea had "direct command" over S-21, where many purged communist cadre were detained.
"Nuon Chea had them sent directly to me," Duch said in the interview, a transcript of which was obtained by The Associated Press.
Nuon Chea has consistently denied any responsibility for the regime's mass brutality, although he has said he was ready to face the tribunal.
"I admit that there was a mistake. But I had my ideology. I wanted to free my country. I wanted people to have well-being," Nuon Chea told the AP in 2004.
"I didn't use wisdom to find the truth of what was going on, to check who was doing wrong and who was doing right. I accept that error," he said in the interview.
Theary Seng, the director of Center for Social Development, a nonprofit group monitoring the development of the Khmer Rouge tribunal, said Nuon Chea's arrest was "a very good starting point."
"Even if we don't see a conviction, at least we have witnessed a process" of searching for justice, Theary Seng said.
After the Khmer Rouge were driven from power in 1979, the Khmer Rouge continued to fight a guerrilla war that unraveled only a decade ago and ended with a tacit agreement to let several of the former leaders live quietly in the country.
Pol Pot died in 1998. His former military chief, Ta Mok, died in custody in 2006.
Nuon Chea's senior-level colleagues -- Ieng Sary, the former foreign minister, and Khieu Samphan, the former head of state -- still live freely in Cambodia but are in declining health. They are also widely believed to be on the prosecutors' list.
The tribunal was created last year after seven years of contentious negotiations between the United Nations and Cambodia. The trials are expected to begin next year.
The government of Prime Minister Hun Sen -- a former Khmer Rouge soldier -- constantly bullied the world body for control of the joint venture, budgeted at $56.3 million over three years.
Cambodian judges already hold a majority in decision-making matters, but under the tribunal's rules, they need at least one vote from a foreign counterpart to make rulings. The tribunal is being operated under the Cambodian judicial system, often described by critics as weak, corrupt and susceptible to political manipulation.
