It’s 2014 and I’m in Phnom Penh working for the prosecution at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal. I’d read the numbers and knew the dates. On 17 April 1975, the Khmer Rouge seized Phnom Penh, forcibly evacuating its citizens. They ruled Cambodia until the Vietnamese, with support from former Khmer Rouge members, toppled the regime in January 1979. One in every four Cambodians—around two million people—died during those years.

We were prosecuting Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in a staggeringly complex trial. We’d attempted to prosecute Ieng Sary and Ieng Thirith, his wife, but Sary died just as the trial began and the court found Thirith unfit to stand trial. We’d already prosecuted Kaing Guek Eav—known as “Comrade Duch”—who ran the notorious Tuol Sleng security complex. Pol Pot had died almost a decade before the Tribunal opened and was beyond the court’s reach.

• Tags: Cambodia, Issue 39, Kate Gauld, Khieu Ponnary