Cambodia's UN-backed Khmer Rouge tribunal adjourned a bail hearing on Monday for "Brother Number Two" Nuon Chea after his Dutch lawyer failed to show up.
Making his first court appearance since being charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity, the white-haired and toothless 82-year-old Nuon Chea, who was Pol Pot's right hand man, spoke only to ask that his request for bail be delayed.
"Why are we having the hearing today since I have only one Cambodian lawyer and it is not consistent with international standards?" he asked the courtroom packed with nearly 500 people and reporters.
"If the hearing goes ahead, I don't believe it will be fair to me," he said. An estimated 1.7 million people were executed or died of torture, disease or starvation under Pol Pot's 1975-79 reign of terror as his dream of creating an agrarian peasant utopia descended into the nightmare of the "Killing Fields".
Nuon Chea is accused of playing a central role in the atrocities and has been implicated directly in the mass slaughter of regime opponents by Duch, head of Phnom Penh's S-21, or Tuol Sleng, interrogation and torture centre.
Duch who is also accused of atrocities, is expected to be a key witness at the long-awaited $56 million tribunal. The court did not set a new date to hear Nuon Chea's request that he be released on bail for lack of evidence. He is unlikely to be freed.