Khmer Rouge General Gets Life for Killing Briton

A Cambodian court yesterday sentenced a former senior Khmer Rouge commander to life imprisonment for masterminding the abduction and murder of three western backpackers, including a British man, in 1994.

Sam Bith, 69, was found guilty of planning the attack on a train in Phnom Voar in south-west Cambodia on July 26 eight years ago in which Mark Slater, 28, from Corby, Northamptonshire, David Wilson, an Australian, and Jean-Michel Braquet, from France, were kidnapped and at least a dozen local Cambodians were killed.

The foreigners were hidden in jungle for about seven weeks until the authorities decided to mount a rescue bid after negotiations collapsed amid allegations of officials competing to maximise personal profit.

The assault failed to recover the men and they were later found in shallow graves with bullet wounds in their heads.

Sam Bith is arguably the most senior member of the communist regime that ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, during which about 1.7 million people were killed, to stand trial. He is the third Khmer Rouge commander to be convicted of involvement in the westerners' deaths, but in his judgment Judge Sok Setha Mony said Sam Bith was "the real mastermind" behind "the vicious acts committed against innocent civilians".

"After having the foreigners in his possession, Sam Bith gave an order to his subordinates to kill them on September 28 1994," the judge said.

Sam Bith had denied the charges, claiming that four days before ambush he had been transferred out of the area by the Khmer Rouge supreme leader, Pol Pot. But he was strongly implicated by one of the two other men to be convicted for the crime, General Nuon Paet, who said during his trial in 1999 that Sam Bith, who was his superior in the area, had ordered the tourists' execution.

Sam Bith, who appeared frail in court wearing an olive green safari suit, described the verdict as "unjust" and vowed to appeal as he was led away to prison. His wife, Im Ry, who began crying before the verdict was announced, alleged her husband was the victim of a "revenge" plot by Nuon Paet.

The defendant was also ordered to pay 50m riel (£7,800) in compensation to the Slater and Braquet families. He and Nuon Paet have to pay the same amount jointly to the Wilson family.

The British ambassador to Cambodia, Stephen Bridges, who was in court, described the verdict as a major step "towards justice for the families of the three young men".

The Foreign Office minister Mike O'Brien said in a statement that the court's decision "is a further step in bringing to justice the Khmer Rouge leaders responsible for the abduction and murder of five British nationals between 1994 and 1996: Mark Slater, Dominic Chappell, Tina Dominy, Christopher Howes and Robert Burndred".

Burndred disappeared just after arriving in Cambodia in January 1994, Chappell and Dominy were shot after being seized on April 11 1994 while travelling from Sihanoukville to the capital, Phnom Penh, and Howes, a mine clearance expert, was abducted and murdered near the Angkor Wat temple complex in 1996.

Yesterday's verdict marks a milestone in bringing Khmer Rouge leaders to justice, but there is little sign that trials are about to start for leaders who committed atrocities in 1975-79. The UN, which in February pulled out of talks to create an international tribunal, last week agreed to resume negotiations with Phnom Penh, but much domestic opposition remains to any hearings.