Career
As the recently-proclaimed state legislature, the Kampuchean People's Representative Assembly held its first plenary session during April 11–13, 1976, Chea was elected President of its Standing Committee. He briefly held office as acting Prime minister when Pol Pot resigned for one month, citing health reasons. He was forced to abandon his position as President of the Assembly, along with all others as the Vietnamese captured Phnom Penh in January 1979.
On December 29, 1998, following a bargain with the government, Chea surrendered as part of the last remnants of Khmer Rouge resistance and in a press conference after the deal expressed a terse statement of sorrow for the suffering of Cambodians. The government under Prime Minister Hun Sen, himself a former member of the Khmer Rouge, agreed to forsake attempts to prosecute Chea; a decision that was condemned by sections of Cambodians and the international community. Although implicated by former subordinates and documents in crimes against humanity, he lived for years as a free man in a modest home in Pailin with his wife near the Thailand border.
On September 19, 2007, Nuon Chea was arrested at his home in Pailin and flown to the Cambodia Tribunal in Phnom Penh where he was charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity. He has since been held in detention, from which he has sought to be released. Speaking in court in early February 2008, he said that his case should be handled according to international standards, arguing that the proceedings should be delayed because his Dutch lawyer, Michiel Pestman, had not yet arrived.
Read more about this topic: Nuon Chea
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