18 Facts About Khieu Samphan

Khieu Samphan is a Cambodian former communist politician and economist who was the chairman of the state presidium of Democratic Kampuchea from 1976 until 1979.

Khieu Samphan is the oldest living former prime minister and the last surviving senior member of the Khmer Rouge following the deaths of Nuon Chea in August 2019 and Kang Kek Iew in September 2020.

Khieu Samphan was of Khmer-Chinese extraction, having inherited his Chinese heritage from his maternal grandfather.

When Samphan was a young boy, Khieu Long was found guilty of corruption and sentenced to imprisonment, leaving Samphan's mother to take up a living selling fruits and vegetables in Kampong Cham Province where he grew up.

Nevertheless, Khieu Samphan managed to earn a seat at the Lycee Sisowath and was able to travel to France to pursue his university studies in Economics at the University of Montpellier, after which he earned a PhD at the University of Paris.

Khieu Samphan became a member of the circle of leftist Khmer intellectuals studying at the Sorbonne, Paris, in the 1950s.

Khieu Samphan was one of the founders of the Khmer Students' Association, out of which grew the left-wing revolutionary movements that would so alter Cambodian history in the 1970s, most notably the Khmer Rouge.

L'Observateur was banned by the government in the following year and police publicly humiliated Khieu Samphan by beating, undressing and photographing him in public.

Khieu Samphan stood as a Sangkum deputy in the 1962,1964 and 1966 elections, in which the lattermost the rightist elements of the party, led by Lon Nol, gained an overwhelming victory.

However, Khieu Samphan's radicalism led to a split in the party and he had to flee to a jungle after an arrest warrant was issued against him.

The Khmer Rouge, including Khieu Samphan, joined forces with the now-deposed Prince Sihanouk in establishing an anti-Khmer Republic coalition known as the National United Front of Kampuchea, and an associated government: the Royal Government of the National Union of Kampuchea.

Prime Minister Hun Sen defied international pressure and Khieu Samphan was not arrested or prosecuted at the time of his surrender.

On 13 November 2007, the 76-year-old Khieu Samphan reportedly suffered a stroke.

Khieu Samphan acknowledged the use of coercion to produce food due to shortages.

Khieu Samphan strongly criticized the current government in the book, blaming it for corruption and social ills.

Historian Ben Kiernan stated that Khieu Samphan's protestations betrayed the fundamental "moral cowardice" of a man mesmerized by power but lacking any nerve.

The judgment emphasised that Khieu Samphan "encouraged, incited and legitimised" the criminal policies that led to the deaths of civilians "on a massive scale" including the millions forced into labour camps to build dams and bridges and the mass extermination of Vietnamese.

On 16 August 2021, Khieu Samphan appeared before a court in Phnom Penh to appeal against his conviction, in an attempt to overturn it.