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never been identified and that many who died were never buried. 522 Overall, estimates
indicate that between 600,000 and 3 million died as a result of Khmer Rouge policies
and actions. Within this range, experts accept estimates falling between 1.5 and 2
million excess deaths as the most accurate.523
4.1. Chapeau requirements for crimes against humanity listed in Article 5 of the
ECCC law
175. Where relevant to Case 002/01, the Closing Order charges the Accused
pursuant to Article 5 of the ECCC Law with the following crimes against humanity
“committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian
population, on national, political, ethnical, racial or religious grounds”: (i) murder, (ii)
extermination, (iii) political persecution, and (iv) other inhumane acts comprising (a)
attacks against human dignity, (b) forced transfer and (c) enforced disappearances.524
522
Demographic Expert Report: Khmer Rouge Victims in Cambodia, April 1975-January 1979: A
Critical Assessment of Major Estimates, E3/2413, 30 September 2009, p. 12, ERN (En) 00385255.
523
T. 25 July 2012 (David CHANDLER), pp. 9-12 (the consensus is that between 1.5 and 3 million
people died under the Khmer Rouge); T. 10 April 2013 (François PONCHAUD), pp. 75-76 (in 1986,
PONCHAUD estimated that 800,000 people were killed during the DK regime, CIA were estimating
that 1.4 million people were killed and other embassies were estimating that 1 million people were
killed); Article by P. HEUVELINE: The Unbearable Certainty of Numbers: Estimating the Death Toll
of the Khmer Rouge Period, E3/1798, Nov-Dec 1998, p. 10, ERN (En) 00291624 (After reviewing
various estimates, determining that the central interval, 1.5 to 2.5 million excess deaths, is most
probable); Article by P. HEUVELINE: ‘Between One and Three Million’: Towards the Demographic
Reconstruction of a Decade of Cambodian History (1970-79), E3/1799, 1998, p. 60, ERN (En)
00096735 (Heuveline estimates that there were 1.5 to 2 million excess deaths in 1975-1978, and states
that, in his reconstruction, at least 600,000, and possibly as many as 2 million, deaths, cannot be
accounted for by either a general decline in life expectancy or by the mortality due to the war prior to
1975); Article by B. SHARP: Counting Hell, E3/1801, undated, p. 24, ERN (En) 00078288 (After
reviewing other experts’ figures, SHARP identifies a range of 1.747 million to 2.459 million deaths
due to Khmer Rouge policies and actions; SHARP considers the midpoint of the range being 2.12
million “falls fairly close to the most likely figure”); Book by M. VICKERY: Cambodia 1975-1982,
E3/1757, 1984, pp. 200-201, ERN (En) 00397115-16 (M. VICKERY estimated that 740,800 deaths
were caused by the special conditions during the DK. He estimated that more than half were caused by
hunger, exhaustion and illness and about 300,000 people were executed. He suggested that more
accurate estimates were impossible and that it was impossible to project a figure of 1-2 million
executions based on the data available in 1984); Demographic Expert Report: Khmer Rouge Victims in
Cambodia, April 1975-January 1979: A Critical Assessment of Major Estimates, E3/2413, 30
September 2009, pp. 15-19, 64-70, ERN (En) 00385258-62, 00385326-32 (Excess death estimates
published between 1980 and 1993 consistently approach one million, except VICKERY who suggested
740,000. Later estimates made between 1995 and 2009 range from 1.4 million to 2.2 million. After
reviewing all these estimates, the authors accepted that the interval of 1.747 to 2.2 million deaths under
the Khmer Rouge is the most likely range and determined that earlier estimates heavily underestimated
the scale of actual killing by the Khmer Rouge).
524
Closing Order, paras 1373, 1375, 1377, 1379-1380 (murder); 1381, 1387-1389 (extermination);
1415-1418, 1423-1425 (political persecution); 1434-1436, 1439-1440 (other inhumane acts, attacks
Case 002/01, Judgement, 7 August 2014 - Public
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