LEADERS of the Khmer Rouge want to hand deposed dictator Pol Pot to an international tribunal to stand trial for war crimes against the Cambodian people.
They want to surrender their 73-year-old former leader in exchange for food and medicine, according to the Hong Kong-based Far Eastern Economic Review.
Executions, forced labour and disease killed up to two million Cambodians from 1975, when Pol Pot's forces captured the capital Phnom Penh, to 1979, when the Khmer Rouge was defeated by invading Vietnamese forces. The Khmer Rouge has been opposing the government army from its jungle camps ever since.
Pol Pot has been held under house arrest close to the Thai border since June last year when he was overthrown in an internal power struggle. There have been calls for him to be brought before the International Court of Justice in The Hague to stand trial for crimes against humanity.
General Khem Nuon of the Khmer Rouge reportedly asked reporter Nat Thayer to put him in touch with 'the right people' so a handover could be arranged.
Thayer is said to have suggested they contact the International Committee of the Red Cross.