01005742 Case File No. 002/19-09-2007/ECCC/TC E313 These reports do not indicate the precise date or the duration of KHIEU Samphan’s visit. However, a contemporaneous Australian Embassy Cable indicates that an Australian delegation’s visit to Laos was postponed because KHIEU Samphan had spent the week of 2-8 June in Sam Neua, Laos.391 137. This is consistent with the detailed testimony and memoire of SUONG Sikoeun. SUONG travelled from Beijing to Hanoi with IENG Sary and KHIEU Samphan on 25 May 1974, SUONG’s wife’s birthday.392 After staying one week in Hanoi,393 they travelled to Laos for two days before KHIEU Samphan and IENG Sary returned to the liberated zone in Cambodia along the HO Chi Minh trail. 394 SUONG stated that the two had to return to Cambodia because the war between FUNK/GRUNK and Marshall LON Nol had intensified and as leaders of the Resistance Movement, KHIEU Samphan and IENG Sary were obliged to join the Resistance in the country.395 The Chamber is therefore satisfied that KHIEU Samphan was in Laos in the first week of June 1974 before returning to the liberated zone in Cambodia with IENG Sary. 138. The official visit to China, noted above, was particularly significant. During it, KHIEU Samphan secured for the first time since the January 1973 Paris Peace Agreement between the North Vietnam Republic and the U.S., a publicly-announced agreement whereby China would provide military equipment and supplies to the CPK forces.396 The visit was also significant for the open support and encouragement 391 Australian Embassy Telegram, Subject: More Information from Australian Ambassador’s Visit to Pathet Lao Headquarters in Sam Neua, E282.1.14, 19 June 1974, ERN (En) 00899053. The Chamber notes that it has denied the Co-Prosecutors’ request, opposed by the KHIEU Samphan Defence, to put this document before the Chamber because the Co-Prosecutors failed to exercised due-diligence in obtaining the cable prior to trial (E282/2/1/2, para. 4). However, the Chamber now considers it in the interests of justice to put before it E282.1.14 insofar as it partially supports the alibi put forward by the KHIEU Samphan Defence (See E190, paras 19-21). 392 Suong Sikoeun Book manuscript, E3/40, ERN (Fr) 00078987; T. 2 August 2012 (SUONG Sikoeun), p. 90. 393 T. 2 August 2012 (SUONG Sikoeun), p. 90. 394 T. 2 August 2012 (SUONG Sikoeun), pp. 89-91; SUONG Sikoeun Book manuscript, E3/40, ERN (Fr) 00078987, 00078989, 00078992; See also, Laurence PICQ Interview Record, E3/353, 29 October 2008, ERN (En) 00323626 (SUONG Sikoeun went on many official trips with IENG Sary and NORODOM Sihanouk. SUONG left Beijing for Cambodia in May 1974); My Life under IENG Sary: Crying against the shame and horror (Phnom Penh Post), E3/2381, 4-17 October 1996, ERN (En) (00189076) (Sikoeun left for the resistance in 1974). 395 T. 2 August 2012 (SUONG Sikoeun), p. 91 396 U.S. State Department Telegram, Subject: KHIEU Samphan Visit to the PRC, E3/2939, 27 May 1974, para. 1, ERN (En) 00377050 (describing the first openly announced military agreement since the Case 002/01, Judgement, 7 August 2014 - Public 75