PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA – The last surviving leader of the Khmer Rouge, Khieu Samphan, has made his final appeal against his conviction for genocide as the long-running United Nations-backed Cambodia tribunal held its last public hearings before winding down. 

Amid tight security and health restrictions imposed to guard against the COVID-19 pandemic, Khieu Samphan delivered a dramatic 16-minute defense in which he categorically refused to accept his 2018 conviction for genocide against Cambodia’s Muslim Cham and ethnic Vietnamese.

Full package: Read, watch listen here.