Judges have been sworn in to preside over the genocide trial of former officials in Cambodia's Khmer Rouge government. The Khmer Rouge was responsible for the deaths of as many as 1.7 million people between 1975 and 1979.
The judges are a mix of Cambodians and international judges appointed by the United Nations. A ceremony to swear in the new judges was held at the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh on Monday. Seventeen Cambodians and 10 international judges were sworn in during the ceremony. Two additional international judges are expected to be appointed to the panel before the trials begin.
The Cambodian government has been reluctant to fund these trials which were first announced in 1997. Most of the money has come from foreign donors.
In 2003, an agreement was reached between the government in Phnom Penh and the U.N. to jointly convene the trials. The Cambodian justice system is still hampered by the mass murder of nearly all members of the intelligentsia under the reign of the Khmer Rouge.
Reach Sambath, a spokesman for the tribunal, told the BBC that the swearing in of the judges, 'erases the negative speculation people have had in the past that there won't be any trial.'
Only some of the former Khmer Rouge officials are in custody at this time. Dictator Pol Pot died in 1998. Two former regime leaders, Ta Mok and Kang Keng Ieu, more commonly known as Duch, are in jail on genocide charges.
Still, other key figures remain free including Pol Pot's 'Brother Number Two' Nuon Chea, former head of state Khieu Samphan and former Foreign Minister Ieng Sary.
Nuon Chea told the Associated Press he would have no trouble testifying before the tribunal. 'I will be glad to go, so that people in my country and other countries will know the truth of what happened. Whatever they ask, I will tell them,' he said.
