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Reuters
The couple are already serving life sentences
The UN-backed Khmer Rouge tribunal is set to issue a verdict on the genocide guilt of the last two Pol Pot leaders still alive.
Nuon Chea, 92, was Pol Pot's deputy and Khieu Samphan, 87, was the head of the regime's state.
They are on trial for genocide against the Cham Muslim minority and the Vietnamese ethnic group of Cambodia.
It is estimated that nearly two million people died under the brutal regime of the Khmer Rouge between 1975 and 1979.
Many of them succumbed to starvation and overwork, or were executed as enemies of the state.
The two men are already serving a life sentence after being convicted of crimes against humanity in 2014.
But a guilty verdict on Friday would be the first official recognition that the Khmer Rouge regime was in fact genocide under international law.
The two men will also be tried for more crimes against humanity – including murder, slavery and torture – and violations of the Geneva Conventions.
Who were the Khmer Rouge?
The Khmer Rouge were radical Maoists who formed a regime that ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979 and was led by Saloth Sar, better known as Pol Pot.
The regime – founded by intellectuals trained in France – sought to create an autonomous and agrarian society: cities were emptied and their inhabitants forced to work in rural cooperatives. Many were worked to death while others were starved during the fall of the economy.
During their four years of violence, the Khmer Rouge also killed all those perceived as enemies – intellectuals, minorities, former government officials – and their families.
This included persons belonging to ethnic minorities, but largely composed of members of the Khmer ethnic group.
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EPA
Cambodia became known for "the fields of death", a reference to the massacres that took place
The regime was defeated during a Vietnamese invasion in 1979. Pol Pot fled and remained free until 1997. He died under house arrest a year later.
- Learn more about the brutal Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia
- When the UN ran a country
Why is this court controversial?
Officially called Extraordinary Chambers in Cambodian Courts, this could be the court's final decision.
Established in 2006 with Cambodian and international judges, it has so far only sentenced three people for the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge regime, at a cost of $ 300 million ($ 231.5 million). of £).
In 2010, Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, was responsible for the infamous torture center and Tuol Sleng prison in Phnom Penh.
The former Khmer Rouge Foreign Minister, Ieng Sary, was co-accused with Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea, but died before the judges handed down a verdict in the first of two sub-trials in 2014. His wife Ieng Thirith, the regime's Minister of Social Affairs, co-accused, was declared mentally unfit to stand trial and died in 2015.
- Hun Sen: Cambodian Prime Minister
- How two men survived a prison where 12,000 people died
Although there are lawsuits against four other Khmer Rouge members, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has been vocal about his opposition to the court that would start new trials and there is little chance that happen.
A former middle-ranking member of the Khmer Rouge regime himself, he said his people wanted to move forward and that further lawsuits could lead to violence.
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The Khmer Rouge led an uprising after being overthrown, although thousands of people mutilated themselves in the 1990s before the group was completely dissolved in 1999. In some parts of the country, victims and perpetrators live side by side in villages.
But many Cambodians pay little attention to the court and young people, in particular, want their country to be known for something other than the "fields of death".
