Lawyer for Khmer Rouge’s Nuon Chea threatens to seek US$1 million in damages over dismissal from international tribunal
- Victor Koppe was dismissed on the advice of Cambodia’s bar association, which said he had been unregistered as a lawyer in the Netherlands since 2016
- Koppe’s lawyer claims her client’s dismissal was illegal and has accused tribunal officials of distributing misinformation about the case
A lawyer representing a Khmer Rouge leader who was sentenced to life imprisonment last month is threatening to seek up to US$1 million in damages over his dismissal by the international tribunal that handed down the sentence.
Victor Koppe was dismissed on Thursday on the advice of Cambodia’s bar association, which said that the Dutch national had not been a member of the bar in the Netherlands for nearly three years and should not therefore be practising law in Cambodia.
He nonetheless appeared in court on November 16 to witness the verdict against his client, 92-year-old Nuon Chea, for committing crimes against humanity including genocide.
It is unclear what effect, if any, Koppe’s dismissal will have on the verdict, which is now at the appeals stage.
Britta Boehler, Koppe’s lawyer, claims her client was given permission to appear by the tribunal’s defence section chief Isaac Endeley.
In an email addressed to a number of tribunal officials and seen by the Post, Boehler describes Koppe’s dismissal as illegal because Cambodia’s bar association only requires foreign lawyers to be a member of the bar in their home country at the point of registration, not on a continuing basis.