PHNOM PENH - A UN-backed tribunal in Cambodia arrested the former Khmer Rouge head of state Monday, the fifth senior official of the brutal regime to be rounded up ahead of a long-delayed genocide trial.
Police escorted Khieu Samphan, 76, to the tribunal from a Phnom Penh hospital where he had been undergoing treatment since Wednesday after suffering a stroke a day earlier. Officers held Khieu Samphan's arms to support him as they led him to a police car, which sped away in a heavily guarded convoy.
Tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath, who announced the arrest, said Khieu Samphan would be formally charged by investigating judges later in the day. The statement did not say what charges he faced.
Most historians and researchers believe the radical policies of the Khmer Rouge, which sought a utopian communist state, led to the deaths of at least 1.7 million Cambodians through starvation, disease, overwork and execution.
The arrests of the Khmer Rouge suspects come almost three decades after the group fell from power, and many fear the aging suspects could die before being brought to justice. After years of delays, the trial is expected to begin in 2008.
Khieu Samphan has repeatedly denied responsibility for any atrocities. An insight into his defense hit bookstores last week, when he published his version of the Khmer Rouge's story.
In "Reflection on Cambodian History Up to the Era of Democratic Kampuchea," Khieu Samphan says the Khmer Rouge only wanted what was best for Cambodia.
"There was no policy of starving people. Nor was there any direction set out for carrying out mass killings," he writes. "There was always close consideration of the people's well-being."
Khieu Samphan's arrest by the UN-backed tribunal had been widely expected. The tribunal, which was created last year after seven years of contentious negotiations between the United Nations and Cambodia, already has arrested four of his colleagues.
A week ago, authorities arrested Ieng Sary, the Khmer Rouge's ex-foreign minister, and his wife Ieng Thirith, its social affairs minister. Both were charged with crimes against humanity; Ieng Sary was also charged with war crimes. The genocide tribunal formally placed them in provisional detention for up to a year.
Two other suspects -- former Khmer Rouge ideologist Nuon Chea and Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, who headed the group's S-21 torture center -- were detained earlier this year on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The tribunal is scheduled to open a hearing Tuesday on an appeal by Duch's lawyers against his detention. The hearing will mark the first-ever courtroom proceeding held by the tribunal.
