King of Cambodia Grants Amnesty to Prison Inmates
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Cambodia’s king granted amnesty Friday to nearly all prison inmates, saying it was only fair after he pardoned notorious Khmer Rouge guerrillas.
King Norodom Sihanouk also proposed tearing down Cambodia’s dilapidated prisons, which house an estimated 2,000 people, many held without trial.
Only people convicted of serious crimes judged to be too dangerous will remain incarcerated.
The mass amnesty, Sihanouk said in a written statement, was motivated by concern for fairness after the amnesty he granted for political reasons to thousands of Khmer Rouge rebels, some guilty of heinous crimes.
Last month, the king reluctantly pardoned Khmer Rouge leader Ieng Sary, who was convicted in absentia in 1979 of genocide. Sary served as foreign minister of the Khmer Rouge regime that caused the deaths of as many as 2 million Cambodians between 1975 and 1979.
The pardon was part of a peace deal with Sary’s dissident faction of the Khmer Rouge guerrillas. The hard-line faction led by his former boss and brother-in-law, Pol Pot, is still waging civil war.
It is unclear when the prisoners will be freed.
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