Trevali CEO leaves after two managers convicted of involuntary manslaughter

Cecilia Jamasmie | 

The Caribou mine, about 50 km west of Bathurst, New Briswick. 

(Image courtesy of Trevali.)

Trevali Mining Corp.’s president and chief executive Ricus Grimbeek has left the company following a Burkina Faso court’s verdict that found two employees guilty of involuntary manslaughter.


The convictions are related to a tragic incident at the Canadian company’s Perkoa mine in the West African nation caused by a flash flood in April, which trapped and killed eight miners.

South African national Hein Frey was fined $3,000 and given a suspended 24-month prison sentence. Australian Daryl Christensen, who worked for contracting company Byrnecut, was handed a 12-month suspended sentence and fined $1,500.

In addition to Grimbeek, former head of Vale’s Sudbury operations, Trevali’s chief operating officer Derek du Preez and director Dan Isserow also resigned, the company said in a press release late on September 16.

The struggling miner has also begun a court-approved sales process for its interest in the 90%-owned Rosh Pinah zinc-lead-silver mine, in Namibia, and its fully-owned Caribou mine in New Brunswick, Canada.

Unseasonal, heavy rainfall caused flash floods on April 16 that left eight workers missing underground at Perkoa.

Trevali spent the next two months pumping out about 137 million litres of water. Equipment had to be imported from other countries, including Ghana and South Africa, raising questions about how prepared for a disaster the company was.

The underground mine, which produced about 316.2 million pounds of zinc in 2021, has remained halted since the tragic incident and Trevali has suspended its production and cost guidance for 2022 for the operation.

Delisting

Earlier this month, the Vancouver-based company announced it was delisting from the Toronto Stock Exchange, effective Monday October 3 after close. The decision came after the company filed an application for creditor protection under Canada’s Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA).

CCAA allows companies to restructure and carry on their business while avoiding the “social and economic consequences of bankruptcy.”

Trading is also expected to stop on the Lima Stock Exchange, OTCQX and the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.

"Chaos costs, conflict": Notley says UCP leader out of touch with Alberta concerns

EDMONTON — Alberta's Opposition leader says the province is due for more chaos, costs and conflict after Danielle Smith's victory last night in the United Conservative Party leadership race.


"Chaos costs, conflict": Notley says UCP leader out of touch with Alberta concerns

© Provided by The Canadian Press

After Smith won the leadership last night in a narrow six-ballot win, the NDP's Rachel Notley says the party will continue to be consumed with its internal bickering instead of bread-and-butter issues like the cost of living.

Notley says Smith, who hasn't yet faced any general voters, has no mandate to impose some of the measures she campaigned on, such as the proposed sovereignty act.

She chided Smith for being scared to run in an already-open Calgary constituency and called on her to declare a byelection in that riding as soon as possible.

Notley says her party is focused on things Albertans actually care about, such as the high cost of living.

She says her party is ready for an election any time.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 7, 2022.

Danielle Smith, new premier of Canada's oil-rich Alberta, set to defy Trudeau

Nia Williams
Publishing date :Oct 07, 2022

Danielle Smith speaks at a leadership campaign event on July 14.

 Bailey Seymour/Special to Postmedia

Danielle Smith, the incoming premier of Canada’s main oil-producing province Alberta, has set the stage for an antagonistic relationship with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau after winning her leadership race with plans to push back against federal laws.

Smith, 51, was chosen by members to lead Alberta’s ruling United Conservative Party (UCP) on Thursday, just seven months ahead of the next provincial election.

“Today marks a new beginning in the Alberta story,” Smith told UCP members after winning the leadership race. “No longer will Alberta ask permission from Ottawa to be prosperous and free. … We will not have our resources landlocked or our energy phased out of existence by a virtue-signaling prime minister.”

Trudeau tweeted his congratulations to Smith, who will be sworn into office on Tuesday.

“Let’s work together to build a better future for Albertans – by delivering concrete results, making life more affordable, creating good jobs, and more,” Trudeau said.

Alberta, home to Canada’s vast oil sands and the world’s third-largest crude reserves, has long had a strained relationship with Trudeau’s government in Ottawa, stemming from a sense that the federal government’s climate polices are damaging its oil and gas industry.

Some of Canada’s top oil and gas companies, including Canadian Natural Resources Ltd, Suncor Energy and Cenovus Energy, are all headquartered in Calgary, the business capital of the province.

Smith campaigned on an “Alberta First” slogan designed to appeal to grassroots members on the right wing of the party and has promised to introduce the Alberta Sovereignty Act, which would allow the province to refuse to enforce specific federal laws it does not like.

Political commentators and legal experts said the act is unconstitutional and would likely be struck down in court, but could further sour relations between Ottawa and Alberta, while uncertainty about what the act will actually contain may spook the business community.

“On the business side you might get a bit of a drop in investment confidence until they see exactly what is going on,” said Lori Williams, a political science professor at Calgary’s Mount Royal University.

Williams said she expected Smith would be forced to modify the legislation by the UCP caucus, which could hurt her standing among the grassroots members who voted for her.

“The problem with Smith is that she has ramped up the anger and raised expectations, and the question is if they cannot be met, does that anger turn on her,” Williams said.

The Alberta Federation of Labour, the province’s largest worker advocacy organization, said in a statement that the incoming premier should focus on improving the life of Albertans rather than defying Ottawa.

“With due respect, the vast majority of working Albertans are not thinking about the Sovereignty Act,” said AFL President Gil McGowan. “They’re thinking about things like jobs, inflation, healthcare, and education.”

Smith has promised to mount another legal challenge to the federal government’s carbon tax, despite the Supreme Court of Canada ruling against a similar challenge brought by Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario in 2021.

She was also a vocal critic of public health restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic and took aim at the federal government’s vaccine mandate policy in her victory speech.

“We will not be told what we must put in our bodies in order to work,” she said.

Michael Taube, a columnist and a speechwriter for former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, described Smith as a strong supporter of private enterprise, free markets, trade liberalization and economic liberty.

“Smith promotes her own ideas instead of letting society determine which ideas she should reject,” Taube wrote in the National Post newspaper on Thursday, adding she will be a boon for Canada and conservatism.

 (Reporting by Nia Williams; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Jonathan Oatis)

Explainer-What will change if federal 

marijuana ban is loosened?

Fri, October 7, 2022 

By Brendan Pierson

(Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden has said he would pardon people convicted in federal court of simple marijuana possession, and that his administration is reconsidering the classification of cannabis, which has been in the most dangerous category of drugs.

The move has been welcomed by some as a long-overdue reform, but the effects of reclassifying marijuana are not clear, and could end up meaning more regulation rather than less.

HOW MANY PEOPLE WILL BE AFFECTED BY THE PARDON?

Relatively few people in the United States are convicted of simple possession in federal court. Most are convicted of more serious trafficking offenses, which are not covered by the pardon. A senior administration official said more than 6,500 people with prior federal convictions could be affected by the pardons. While none of them is currently in prison, clearing their convictions could remove barriers to finding jobs or housing.

The vast majority of marijuana prosecutions take place at the state level, where each state has its own laws ranging from criminalization to full legalization, and will not be affected.

HOW COULD MARIJUANA BE RECLASSIFIED?

Marijuana is currently classified as a so-called Schedule I drug under the federal Controlled Substances Act, meaning its possession is almost entirely banned except for certain research purposes. The classification is the same as that of heroin used for drugs deemed to have no legitimate medical uses.

Moving marijuana to a lower tier on the Controlled Substances Act schedule would allow it to be prescribed by doctors. If it became a Schedule II drug, like most opioids used for pain management, those prescriptions would still be tightly controlled by the Drug Enforcement Administration. If it were moved to Schedule V - the lowest tier - it would be minimally controlled, like cough syrups containing small amounts of codeine.

Biden has not expressed a view about where marijuana should fall. The decision is ultimately made by the DEA, with input from the Food and Drug Administration.

HAVEN'T MANY STATES ALREADY LEGALIZED MEDICAL MARIJUANA?

Yes. Thirty-seven states regulate cannabis for medical use, and 19 also allow recreational use.

However, existing state medical marijuana programs would still conflict with federal law if marijuana were rescheduled, according to Alex Kreit of the Salmon P. Chase College of Law at Northern Kentucky University.

Doctors in some states are currently permitted to recommend, rather than prescribe, marijuana for certain medical conditions, since only the FDA can approve prescription drugs. The agency has not approved, and does not regulate, the products dispensed under state law.

Rescheduling marijuana as a prescription drug would mean marijuana products sold as medicine would be subject to FDA regulation, and doctors would have to follow the same regulations that apply to other drugs in their state. Though once approved by the FDA for any medical use, doctors can prescribe a drug for other conditions, so-called off-label use.

"Big pharma might be the big exciting player here, because they have the most to gain if we were to reschedule but it was still something that was very highly regulated," said Douglas Berman, a professor at Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law.

WHAT ABOUT STATES THAT HAVE LEGALIZED RECREATIONAL MARIJUANA?

Selling marijuana for recreational use would still be prohibited by federal law unless it were removed from the schedule entirely. Kreit said that was unlikely, since the Controlled Substances Act requires all drugs with potential for abuse to be scheduled, except alcohol and tobacco.

In recent years, federal authorities have declined to enforce marijuana prohibition within states where it is legal.

Even if marijuana were descheduled, Congress would likely intervene to impose some control, as it has for tobacco, Kreit said.

States could still ban marijuana even if the federal ban were lifted.

HOW COULD RESCHEDULING AFFECT HOW MARIJUANA BUSINESSES OPERATE?

Marijuana businesses have been in limbo for years. Despite the lack of federal enforcement, financial institutions have continued to shy away from them even in states that have fully legalized the drug for fear of running afoul of federal laws.

Jim Thorburn, a lawyer who represents marijuana businesses, said that would not necessarily change if marijuana were rescheduled.

"Recreational use would still be problematic because that could still be considered unlawful drug trafficking," he said. Still, Thorburn said a regulatory regime that created more avenues for legal marijuana might ease access to the financial system.

Kreit also said that rescheduling the drug "could give more banks and financial operators more confidence and comfort" in dealing with marijuana businesses.

(Reporting By Brendan Pierson in New York; editing by Amy Stevens and Bill Berkrot)

Assange supporters form human chain at UK parliament

Sat, October 8, 2022

STORY: Hundreds of protesters gathered in a line which stretched from parliament's perimeter railings and snaked across nearby Westminster Bridge to the other side of the River Thames.

Stella Assange, who is married to the Australian-born activist, said the British government should speak to authorities in the United States to end the extradition bid which was launched in 2019.

"It's already gone on for three-and-a-half years. It is a stain on the United Kingdom and is a stain on the Biden administration," she said.

Assange, 51, is wanted by U.S. authorities on 18 counts, including a spying charge, relating to WikiLeaks' release of confidential U.S. military records and diplomatic cables.

Washington says he put lives in danger. His supporters say he has been victimized because he exposed U.S. wrongdoing in conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Assange's legal team have lodged an appeal at Britain's High Court against London's decision to extradite him.

 

 
 

Women students tell Iran's president to 'get lost' as unrest rages, activists say


Reuters
Publishing date: Oct 08, 2022

DUBAI — Female students in Tehran chanted “get lost” as Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi visited their university campus on Saturday and condemned protesters enraged by the death of a young woman in custody, activists said.

Raisi addressed professors and students at Alzahra University in Tehran, reciting a poem that equated “rioters” with flies, as nationwide demonstrations entered a fourth week.

“They imagine they can achieve their evil goals in universities,” state TV reported. “Unbeknownst to them, our students and professors are alert and will not allow the enemy to realize their evil goals.”

A video posted on Twitter by the activist 1500tasvir website showed what it said were women students chanting “Raisi get lost” and “Mullahs get lost” as the president visited their campus.

An Iranian state coroner’s report denied that 22-year-old Mahsa Amini had died due to blows to the head and limbs while in morality police custody and linked her death to pre-existing medical conditions, state media said on Friday.

Amini, an Iranian Kurd, was arrested in Tehran on Sept. 13 for wearing “inappropriate attire,” and died three days later.

Her death has ignited nationwide demonstrations, marking the biggest challenge to Iran’s clerical leaders in years.

Women have removed their veils in defiance of the clerical establishment while furious crowds called for the downfall of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The government has described the protests as a plot by Iran’s enemies including the United States, accusing armed dissidents – among others – of violence in which at least 20 members of the security forces have been reported killed.

Rights groups say more than 185 people have been killed, hundreds injured and thousands arrested by security forces confronting protests.

After a call for mass demonstrations on Saturday, security forces shot at protesters and used tear gas in the Kurdish cities of Sanandaj and Saqez, according to the Iranian human rights group Hengaw.

In Sanandaj, capital of the northwestern Kurdistan province, one man lay dead in his car while a woman screamed “shameless,” according to Hengaw, which said he had been shot by security forces after he honked his horn as a sign of protest.

But a senior police official repeated the claim by security forces that they did not use live bullets and that the man had been killed by “counter-revolutionaries” (armed dissidents), the state news agency IRNA reported.

A video shared on social media showed a young woman lying unconscious on the ground after she was apparently shot in the northeastern city of Mashhad. Protesters gathered around her to help.

The Norway-based group Iran Human Rights said on its website that at least 185 people, including at least 19 children, had been killed in the protests. The highest number of killings occurred in the restive Sistan-Baluchistan province with half the recorded deaths, it said.

CALL FOR UNITY

After a weekly meeting, President Raisi and Iran’s head of judiciary and parliament speaker called for unity.

“Currently, the Iranian society needs the unity of all its strata regardless of language, religion and ethnicity to overcome the hostility and division spread by anti-Iranians,” they said in a statement carried by state media.

A social media video showed protesters marching in the northern city of Babol and several posts said security forces had surrounded students demonstrating on a university campus.

Hengaw also carried a video of emergency personnel trying to resuscitate a person and said one protester had died after being shot in the abdomen by security forces in Sanandaj. Reuters could not verify the video.

One of the schools in Saqez city’s square was filled with girls chanting “woman, life, freedom,” Hengaw reported.

The widely followed 1500tasvir Twitter account also reported shootings at protesters in the two northwestern Kurdish cities.

A university student who was on his way to join protests in Tehran said he was not afraid of being arrested or even killed.

“They can kill us, arrest us but we will not remain silent anymore. Our classmates are in jail. How can we remain silent?” the student, who asked to remain anonymous, told Reuters.

Iran’s semi-official news agencies played down the protests across the capital Tehran. The ISNA agency reported “limited” demonstrations in about 10 areas of the city and said many Bazaar traders had shut their shops for fear of damage caused by the unrest, denying there was a strike.

Internet watchdog NetBlocks said that the internet had been cut in Sanadaj again amid protests in Kurdish areas in the northwest. The group said on Friday that “internet remains regionally disrupted across #Zahedan, Sistan and Baluchestan Province, #Iran, seven days after an escalation of violence and civilian killings by security forces.”

 (Reporting by Dubai newsroom; Writing by Michael Georgy Editing by Ros Russell and Nick Macfie)

France struggles with refinery strikes, but not planning petrol rationing

Sat, October 8, 2022 

By Caroline Pailliez and Tassilo Hummel

PARIS, Oct 8 (Reuters) - More than a fifth of France's service stations were grappling with supply problems on Saturday, the energy ministry said, as strikes at refineries run by oil majors TotalEnergies and ExxonMobil continued to strain drivers' nerves.

"The Government is doing its utmost to restore the situation to normal as soon as possible", Energy Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher said in a statement.

The ministry said 20.7% of service stations were experiencing difficulties with at least one product at 1 p.m. (1100 GMT) on Saturday, compared with 19% the day before.

"A solution to this conflict must be found as soon as possible", the minister added, in remarks aimed in the direction of striking workers and bosses, echoing remarks made by President Emmanuel Macron on Friday.

A walkout by CGT trade union members at TotalEnergies - mainly over pay - has disrupted operations at two refineries and two storage facilities, while two Exxon Mobil refineries have faced similar problems since Sept. 20.

Environment Minister Christophe Bechu earlier told franceinfo radio the government would not ration petrol for drivers or restrict the use of service stations in response to supply problems caused by the strikes.

"We haven't reached this point yet," Bechu told franceinfo radio when asked if the government would impose any national measures beyond bans in some places on filling jerry cans.

"We are calling on people's calm and sense of responsibility," the minister said, adding that he believed the situation would ease over the next few days as the government makes further use of its strategic reserves.

OUT OF SERVICE

In some areas, mainly the northern Hauts-de-France region and the Ile-de-France around Paris, the share of affected petrol stations is much higher than the national average.

An interactive map compiled by the website mon-essence.fr, where more than 100,000 users have reported outages in recent days according to its operator, showed a large majority of petrol stations in and around Paris were marked out of service.

"The waiting line will take you at least one-and-a-half hours or two", Jean Galibert, a real estate mortgage broker, said as he entered the last stretch of a 700-metre tailback in front of a Paris service station on his scooter.

"This situation right behind me reflects the state of France. We're struggling", said Franck Chang, another customer.

The strikes have reduced France's total refinery output by more than 60%, according to Reuters calculations.

"Nothing has moved on, the strikes continued this morning," a CGT representative at TotalEnergies said.

He added that the union would make a new appeal on Saturday to TotalEnergies Chief Executive Patrick Pouyanne to open negotiations ahead of formal wage talks in November, and that the union had not given up on any of its demands.

A CGT representative at Exxon Mobil also said the strikes at two of the U.S. company's two French refineries were continuing on Saturday morning and would likely last through the weekend, with new talks with management planned on Monday. (Reporting by Tassilo Hummel and Caroline Pailliez; Additional reporting by Thomas Denis; Editing by Nick Macfie and David Holmes)

Ivanhoe Electric confirms Cu-Au mineralization below former Mammoth mine

Staff Writer | 

Ivanhoe Electric is seeking high-grade copper-gold ore near surface and at depth in Utah. Credit: Ivanhoe Electric

As part of the targeting program underway ahead of future drilling at its Tintic copper-gold project in Utah, Ivanhoe Electric (TSX: IE) recently resampled drill core from a number of historic holes and has received assay results indicating the presence of high-grade copper and precious metals mineralization near the historic Mammoth underground mine, specifically within the New Park Reserves area.


The New Park Reserves represent a viable exploration area identified by Ivanhoe Electric beneath the historic mine workings. The area was partially mined with crosscuts by Kennecott (now a division of Rio Tinto) and drilled in the 1960s by the New Park Mining (now Newpark Resources, an oilfield services group). Six sections from five New Park Mining drill holes were resampled, one of which assayed 1.95% copper, 1.69 g/t gold and 129 g/t silver over a length of 20.4 metres.

Speaking at the annual Denver Gold Forum on Tuesday, Ivanhoe chairman and CEO Robert Friedland said: “We continue to be astounded by the high-grade mineral potential of the Tintic district. A lot of copper, gold, silver, lead and zinc ended up at Tintic, and it certainly did not fall from the sky. These results from the New Park Reserves area continue to demonstrate that the old-timers did not mine all of the high-grade copper, gold and silver. In addition, these results provide further evidence of the presence of one or more large-scale porphyry copper-gold deposits located at depth at Tintic.

“Using our proprietary high-powered Typhoon geophysical surveying system, we completed a 72-km2, three-dimensional induced polarization and resistivity survey and imaged three large-scale anomalies – each comparable with the scale of the nearby Bingham Canyon copper-gold mine,” Friedland said.

Bingham Canyon, more commonly known as the Kennecott copper mine among locals, is an open pit operation owned by Rio Tinto. Over the past 119 years, it has milled more than 2.7 billion tonnes of copper-gold ore and produced over 20 million tonnes of refined copper metal and more than 28 million oz. of gold.

According to Friedland, Ivanhoe’s geologists continue to identify new features that support the thesis that one or more of these Typhoon anomalies may be the porphyry targets that have produced all of the copper and precious metals in the historic Tintic district.

“These anomalies are located at depth from surface, meaning any potential mining operation at Tintic would likely be an underground operation,” he added.

Mineralization in the Tintic district was first discovered in 1869, and by 1871 significant mining camps were established in the nearby city of Eureka and the now defunct towns of Silver City and Diamond. The area saw nearly continuous mining operations from 1871 through to 2002 with variations in the level of activity and commodity extracted.

The Mammoth mine was historically one of the most significant mines in the Tintic mining district, operating between the late 1890s and the 1930s. While much of its early productive history went unrecorded, from 1901 onwards Mammoth is known to have produced approximately 1.18 million tonnes of ore grading 9.7 g/t gold, 349 g/t silver, 1.42% copper and 1.39% lead.

Perpetua Resources gets DOD funding to study antimony production from Stibnite gold project

Staff Writer | 

Stibnite Gold project pit. Image from Perpetua Resources.

Perpetua Resources (Nasdaq: PPTA, TSX: PPTA) has been awarded two funding grants from the US Department of Defense (DOD) Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) to study the domestic production of military-grade antimony trisulfide, an essential component in ammunition and dozens of other defense materials.


Perpetua will receive $200,000 in total to evaluate whether antimony from its Stibnite Gold project in Idaho can meet military specifications to help secure America’s defense and commercial ammunition supply chain while also evaluating alternate methods for purifying antimony trisulfide.

Perpetua submitted two proposals to DLA’s “Production of Energetic Materials and Associated Precursors” Small Business Innovation Research grant solicitation. The program is focused on reducing “foreign reliance and single points of failure for the domestic manufacturing of energetic materials” through the development of a domestic source.

Related: How a gold-stibnite restoration in Idaho could add antimony to US supply chain

After a competitive review process, Perpetua was awarded SBIR Phase 1 funding of $100,000 for both programs. Each study is expected to be completed within the next six to 12 months.

“Antimony from the Stibnite Gold project site served our national defense needs during World War II and Perpetua is confident we can be part of the solution again,” Perpetua Resources CEO Laurel Sayer said in a media statement.

“We are grateful for this opportunity to work with the Department of Defense to demonstrate that our Project can develop reliable and domestically sourced antimony trisulfide for defense and commercial ammunition.”

The first program will test existing samples of antimony trisulfide ore from the project for development into antimony trisulfide to Mil-Spec. The second program will study alternative processing opportunities to develop Mil-Spec antimony trisulfide from high purity antimony metal.

After the completion of the proposed programs, Phase 2 funding could be made available for more advanced stage pilot-scale testing within the next year. Together, the Phase 1 and Phase 2 programs could confirm the Project’s ability to provide the domestic antimony source needed to meet the defense procurement demand and support commercial markets.

Antimony trisulfide is produced from high purity antimony ore feedstock and is used in small and medium caliber munitions, mortars, artillery, mines, flares, grenades, shoulder launched munitions and missiles. Currently, China, Russia, and Tajikistan control approximately 90% of the world’s antimony supply and the United States has no domestically mined source of the critical mineral.

Perpetua’s proposed Stibnite Gold Project hosts one of the largest antimony deposits in the world independent of China and Russia.

The Stibnite Gold project in central Idaho, is advancing through the sixth year of review under the National Environmental Policy Act. The Project is designed to restore environmental conditions in the historical Stibnite mining district while responsibly developing one of the highest-grade open pit gold resources in the United States and becoming the only domestically mined source of the critical mineral antimony.

Mining activity first started in the district in the early 20th century for gold and silver. During WWII and the Korean War, the US Government commissioned antimony and tungsten production from Stibnite under the authority of the Strategic Metals Act of 1939. The site produced over 90% of the antimony used by the U.S. during WWII and was influential in establishing Mil-Spec for antimony trisulfide.

Panama launch of futuristic oceanfront home goes sideways

A SeaPod Eco prototype, the first of a futuristic line of homes built over water, is shown to the press in Linton Bay Marina, Panama, Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022. Developers hoped to market these homes that are only accessible by boat off Panama's Caribbean coast but the prototype partially collapsed after its first showing to the press. (AP Photo/Arnulfo Franco)

COLON, Panama (AP) — The unveiling of a futuristic luxury model home on Panama’s Caribbean coast tanked Thursday when the SeaPod Eco prototype perched above the water on a column slumped onto an adjacent dock.

Developer Ocean Builders said in a statement that the sleek white home began to “destabilize” at the end of the launch event. It said no one was injured and the cause was being investigated.

The home that is reminiscent of a space ship sits well above the water and features expansive views from a row of windows. The developers had planned to begin offering the homes for sale next year, touting them as friendly to the environment and the economy.

FRENCH MAOISM
Khmer Rouge tribunal ends work after 16 years, 3 judgments

By SOPHENG CHEANG and GRANT PECK

1 of 17

In this photo released by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, Khieu Samphan, right, the former head of state for the Khmer Rouge, sits in a courtroom during a hearing at the U.N.-backed war crimes tribunal in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022. The international court convened in Cambodia to judge the brutalities of the Khmer Rouge regime that caused the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people in the 1970s ends its work Thursday after spending $337 million and 16 years to convict just three men of crimes. 

(Nhet Sok Heng/Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia via AP)


PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — The international court convened in Cambodia to judge the Khmer Rouge for its brutal 1970s rule ended its work Thursday after spending $337 million and 16 years to convict just three men of crimes after the regime caused the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people.

In its final session, the U.N.-assisted tribunal rejected an appeal by Khieu Samphan, the last surviving leader of the Khmer Rouge government that ruled Cambodia from 1975-79. It reaffirmed the life sentence he received after being convicted in 2018 of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Busloads of ordinary Cambodians turned up to watch the final proceedings of a tribunal that had sought to bring justice, accountability and explanations for the crimes. Many of those attending Thursday’s session lived through the Khmer Rouge terror, including survivors Bou Meng and Chum Mey, who had given evidence at the tribunal over the years.

Khieu Samphan, sitting in a wheelchair and wearing a white windbreaker and a face mask, listened to the proceedings on headphones.

He was the group’s nominal head of state but, in his trial defense, denied having real decision-making powers when the Khmer Rouge carried out a reign of terror to establish a utopian agrarian society, causing Cambodians’ deaths from execution, starvation and inadequate medical care. It was ousted from power in 1979 by an invasion from neighboring communist state Vietnam.

“No matter what you decide, I will die in prison,” Khieu Samphan said in his final statement of appeal to the court last year. “I will die always remembering the suffering of my Cambodian people. I will die seeing that I am alone in front of you. I am judged symbolically rather than by my actual deeds as an individual.”

His appeal alleged the court made errors in legal procedures and interpretation and acted unfairly, making objections to more than 1,800 points.

But the court noted Thursday that his appeal did not directly question the facts of the case as presented in court. It rejected almost all arguments raised by Khieu Samphan, acknowledging an error and reversing its ruling on one minor count. The court said it found the vast majority of Khieu Samphan’s arguments “unfounded,” and that many were “alternative interpretations of the evidence.”

Thursday’s ruling makes little practical difference. Khieu Samphan is 91 and already serving another life sentence for his 2014 conviction for crimes against humanity connected with forced transfers and disappearances of masses of people.

The court ordered that Khieu Samphan, who was arrested in 2007, be returned to the specially constructed jail where he has been kept.

His co-defendant Nuon Chea, the Khmer Rouge’s No. 2 leader and chief ideologist, was convicted twice and received the same life sentence. Nuon Chea died in 2019 at age 93.

The tribunal’s only other conviction was that of Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, who was commandant of Tuol Sleng prison, where roughly 16,000 people were tortured before being taken away to be killed. Duch was convicted in 2010 of crimes against humanity, murder, and torture and died in 2020 at age 77 while serving a life sentence.

The Khmer Rouge’s real chief, Pol Pot, escaped justice. He died in the jungle in 1998 at age 72 while the remnants of his movement were fighting their last battles in the guerrilla war they launched after losing power.

The trials of the only other two defendants were not completed. The former foreign minister of the Khmer Rouge, Ieng Sary, died in 2013, and his wife, former Social Affairs Minister Ieng Thirith, was deemed unfit to stand trial due to dementia in 2011 and died in 2015.

Four other suspects, middle-ranking Khmer Rouge leaders, escaped prosecution because of a split among the tribunal’s jurists.

In a hybrid arrangement, Cambodian and international jurists were paired at every stage, and a majority had to assent for a case to go forward. Under the French-style procedures the court used, the international investigators recommended the four go to trial, but the Cambodian partners would not agree after Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen declared there would be no more prosecutions, claiming they could cause unrest.

Hun Sen himself was a middle-ranking commander with the Khmer Rouge before defecting, and several senior members of his ruling Cambodian People’s Party share similar backgrounds. He helped cement his political control by making alliances with other former Khmer Rouge commanders.

With its active work done, the tribunal, formally called the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, now enters a three-year “residual” period, focusing on getting its archives in order and disseminating information about its work for educational purposes.

Experts who took part in the court’s work or monitored its proceedings are now pondering its legacy.

Heather Ryan, who spent 15 years following the tribunal for the Open Society Justice Initiative, said the court was successful in providing some level of accountability.\
“The amount of time and money and effort that’s expended to get to this rather limited goal may be disproportionate to the goal,” she said in a video interview from her home in Boulder, Colorado.

But she praised having the trials “in the country where the atrocities occurred and where people were able to pay a level of attention and gather information about what was happening in the court to a much greater extent than if the court had been in The Hague or some other place.” The Hague in the Netherlands hosts the World Court and the International Criminal Court.

Michael Karnavas, an American lawyer who served on Ieng Sary’s defense team, said his personal expectations had been limited to the quality of justice his clients would receive.

“In other words, irrespective of the results, substantively and procedurally, were their fair trial rights guaranteed by the Cambodian Constitution and established law afforded to them at the highest international level?” he said in an email interview. “The answer is somewhat mixed.”

“The trial stage was less than what I consider fair. There was far too much improvisation by the judges, and despite the length of the proceedings, the defense was not always treated fairly,” said Karnavas, who has also appeared before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

“On the substantive and procedural law, there are numerous examples where the ECCC not only got it right, but further contributed to the development of international criminal law.”

There is a consensus that the tribunal’s legacy goes beyond the law books.

“The court successfully attacked the long-standing impunity of the Khmer Rouge, and showed that though it might take a long time, the law can catch up with those who commit crimes against humanity,” said Craig Etcheson, who has studied and written about the Khmer Rouge and was chief of investigations for the office of the prosecution at the ECCC from 2006 to 2012.

“The tribunal also created an extraordinary record of those crimes, comprising documentation that will be studied by scholars for decades to come, that will educate Cambodia’s youth about the history of their country, and that will deeply frustrate any attempt to deny the crimes of the Khmer Rouge.”

The bedrock issue of whether justice was served by the court’s convictions of only three men was addressed by Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, which holds a huge trove of evidence of atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge.

“Justice sometimes is made of satisfaction, recognition, rather than the number of people you prosecute,” he told The Associated Press. “It is a broad definition of the word justice itself, but when people are satisfied, when people are happy with the process or benefit from the process, I think we can conceptualize it as justice.”

___

Peck reported from Bangkok. AP journalist Jerry Harmer contributed to this report.