EVEN in death Pol Pot, the butcher of Cambodia, held the world in suspense.
The evil tyrant, whose Killing Fields reign claimed up to two million lives, was reportedly found dead yesterday in his remote jungle hideout. The picture on the right was produced as evidence. But the grey hair revealed at Pol Pot's show trial in Cambodia last year has now turned dark.
And last night there were demands for positive proof that the 73-year- old dictator had not faked his death to escape justice.
Cambodia's Embassy in Paris said Pol Pot had been reported dead many times before and warned that yesterday's reports had not been confirmed by "trustworthy sources." The body identified as
Pol Pot lay on a mattress in a hut in northern Cambodia.
The only independent witness allowed to see it - American journalist Nate Thayer - insisted it WAS the deposed Khmer Rouge leader.
Thayer, who works for the Far Eastern Economic Review and is one of the few Westerners to meet Pol Pot, took photographs of the corpse.
He said last night: "There is no question that this is Pol Pot."
Cambodian diplomats in New York said the tyrant may have dyed his hair as a disguise in recent months when international pressure mounted to put him on trial for genocide.
The US State Department said Washington had no independent confirmation that Pol Pot was dead, but added that it had no reason to doubt the "compelling" photographic evidence.