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DC-Cam Get Khmer Rouge Documents From Sweden


A private Cambodian group investigating Khmer Rouge genocide says it has received 400 kilograms of the former regime's documents from Sweden.

Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, says the records, which he received Monday, had been stored in Sweden for the past 30 years.

Youk Chhang says the documents are historically important and will be useful for prosecutors at the United Nations-backed Khmer Rouge tribunal.

Youk Chhang says he first learned of the records during a visit to Sweden about six years ago and the Swedish government helped return them to Cambodia. He says they are written in Khmer, English, French and Swedish. It is not clear why the documents were in Sweden.

Cambodia and the U.N. agreed in 2003 to establish the tribunal after years of start and stop negotiations.

About one-point-seven million Cambodians died from starvation, overwork and execution during the 1975-to-1979 rule of the communist Khmer Rouge, which abolished religion, property rights, currency and schools.

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