KR leader gets US lawyer

KR leader gets US lawyer
Bangkok Post
http://www.bangkokpost.com/topstories/topstories.php?id=124516
19 December 2007
Former Khmer Rouge deputy prime minister Ieng Sary has selected a highly experienced American lawyer who defended communist-era Yugoslav leaders as his foreign defence attorney, a Cambodian court said.
Michael Karnavas, a member of the Alaska Bar, is Ieng Sary's choice to work with his Cambodian co-lawyer, Ang Udom, to represent him before the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), the court said in a statement.
Karnavas is president of the Association of Defence Counsel of the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and has spent the past seven years defending clients in that court, it said.
"Mr Karnavas has practiced as a defence lawyer since 1986. He has also taught trial advocacy skills for the past 18 years and lectured widely on international criminal law around the world," the ECCC said in a statement.
"In 1995 and 1996 he worked in Cambodia with (local legal aid organization) Cambodian Defender Project and the Cambodian Court Training Project," it added.
"Mr Karnavas' application for registration with the Bar Association of the Kingdom of Cambodia is currently being considered by the Bar Council, and so he will act as Legal Consultant in the case until the process is concluded," the statement said.
Ieng Sary was pardoned of genocide in 1996 by former king Norodom Sihanouk in exchange for defecting to the government and breaking the back of the movement, but was subsequently charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity by the ECCC - charges he denies.
Up to 2 million Cambodians died under the 1975-79 Khmer Rouge regime. dpa
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