Nuon Chea was a senior leader of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, which governed Cambodia as Democratic Kampuchea from 1975 to 1979. The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) describe him as its Deputy Secretary. He was tried with one co-accused, Khieu Samphan, and was convicted in two separate trials. In Case 002/01 the Trial Chamber found him guilty of crimes against humanity on August 7, 2014, and sentenced him to life imprisonment. In Case 002/02 the Trial Chamber convicted him on November 16, 2018, of genocide, crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, and again imposed life imprisonment. He died in Phnom Penh on August 4, 2019, before the Supreme Court Chamber could rule on his second appeal.
The ECCC lists Nuon Chea as Deputy Secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, and as a member of its Standing and Central Committees and chairman of the Democratic Kampuchea People's Assembly. In the 2018 judgement the Trial Chamber found that he acted as the Party Secretary's right hand and took part in all major decisions of the Party.
The tribunal arrested him on September 19, 2007, and placed him in provisional detention. He was charged that year with crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions. On September 15, 2010, the Co-Investigating Judges issued the Case 002 Closing Order, which indicted four accused on charges of crimes against humanity, genocide and grave breaches. The Pre-Trial Chamber affirmed and partly amended the indictments in 2011 and sent the case to trial. Two of the four accused left the case before judgement, which left Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan as the two remaining defendants.
In September 2011 the Trial Chamber divided the case into smaller trials. Case 002/01 covered the forced movement of people from Phnom Penh in April 1975 and from other regions, in two phases, together with a further episode in 1975 that the Chamber added to its scope in October 2012. The trial opened on November 21, 2011. Evidence hearings ended on July 23, 2013, and closing statements concluded on October 31, 2013.
On August 7, 2014, the Trial Chamber found Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan guilty of crimes against humanity. For Nuon Chea the convictions were extermination (encompassing murder), persecution on political grounds, and other inhumane acts, comprising forced transfer, enforced disappearances and attacks against human dignity. Both men were sentenced to life imprisonment, and both appealed.
The Supreme Court Chamber delivered its appeal judgement on November 23, 2016. It granted the appeals in part and dismissed them in part. For the first phase of the population movement it reversed the convictions for extermination and affirmed those for murder, persecution on political grounds and other inhumane acts. For the second phase it reversed the convictions for extermination and persecution on political grounds, affirmed the conviction for other inhumane acts and, recharacterizing the facts, entered a conviction for the crime against humanity of murder. For the third site in the case it reversed the convictions for extermination, murder and persecution on political grounds. It affirmed the sentence of life imprisonment on both men. The Co-Prosecutors' appeal was dismissed as inadmissible.
The second trial covered the remaining charges in Case 002. The Trial Chamber announced its judgement on November 16, 2018, and notified the full written judgement on March 28, 2019.
The Chamber convicted Nuon Chea of crimes against humanity: murder, extermination, deportation, enslavement, imprisonment, torture, persecution on political, religious and racial grounds, forced transfer, and other inhumane acts, including attacks against human dignity, enforced disappearances and forced marriage. It convicted him of grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, including willful killing, torture and inhuman treatment. It also convicted him of genocide by killing members of the Vietnamese group, and, on the basis of superior responsibility, of genocide by killing members of the Cham group. The Chamber found him responsible through participation in a joint criminal enterprise for the crimes against humanity, the grave breaches and the genocide of the Vietnamese group, and through aiding and abetting for murder at several named sites. It found him not guilty of the remaining crimes within the scope of Case 002/02. The Chamber imposed life imprisonment and merged it with the sentence from Case 002/01 into a single term of life imprisonment.
In the same judgement the Trial Chamber convicted Khieu Samphan of crimes against humanity, genocide of the Vietnamese group and grave breaches, and sentenced him to life imprisonment.
Nuon Chea filed his notice of appeal against the Case 002/02 judgement in July 2019. He died on August 4, 2019, in Phnom Penh. The Supreme Court Chamber issued a decision on August 13, 2019, finding that his death extinguished criminal actions against him, and it terminated all proceedings against him. It stated that the termination of proceedings did not vacate the Trial Judgement, and that there is no final judgment with respect to Nuon Chea in Case 002/02. The conviction and life sentence in Case 002/01 had become final on November 23, 2016.
Khieu Samphan's appeal in Case 002/02 was decided on September 22, 2022. The Supreme Court Chamber affirmed his convictions for genocide and war crimes and upheld all of his convictions for crimes against humanity but two.
The second trial concerned a joint criminal enterprise, genocide against two groups and many crimes, and the Chamber's findings on each group differ: it found him guilty of genocide of the Vietnamese group through a joint criminal enterprise, and of genocide of the Cham group only through superior responsibility, without a finding of genocidal intent on his part for the Cham. His appeal in that case was never decided, and the Supreme Court Chamber has stated that the 2018 conviction is not a final judgment as to him.
September 19, 2007: arrested by the ECCC and placed in provisional detention.
September 15, 2010: indicted in Case 002.
November 21, 2011: Case 002/01 trial opens.
August 7, 2014: Case 002/01 Trial Chamber judgement; life imprisonment.
November 23, 2016: Supreme Court Chamber appeal judgement; some convictions reversed, life imprisonment affirmed.
November 16, 2018: Case 002/02 Trial Chamber judgement announced; life imprisonment.
March 28, 2019: written Case 002/02 judgement notified.
July 2019: notice of appeal filed in Case 002/02.
August 4, 2019: dies in Phnom Penh.
August 13, 2019: Supreme Court Chamber terminates all proceedings against him.