Former Khmer Rouge Leader Pol Pot Committed Suicide, Magazine Reports

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia —  Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot committed suicide last year by taking pills after learning that his comrades had offered to hand him over to the United States for trial, a Hong Kong-based magazine reported Wednesday.

The Far Eastern Economic Review, in a press release preceding its latest edition today, said Washington turned down the chance to take Pol Pot into custody because it was not prepared to try him.

Pol Pot was deposed as Khmer Rouge leader in 1997 after a bloody power struggle and kept under house arrest in diminishing rebel territory along the border with Thailand.

Sources in the Khmer Rouge--which was responsible for the deaths of more than 1 million Cambodians-- said the offer to turn Pol Pot over to the U.S. last March came as the last Khmer Rouge strongholds were falling under government attack.

Lacking an indictment, an arrest warrant or a court order on which to try the aging rebel leader, the Americans refused, the Review said.

The offer set off a furious behind-the-scenes effort in Washington to establish grounds for an arrest and find a country willing to hold Pol Pot while a trial could be arranged.

In mid-April, Pol Pot died. The Khmer Rouge said he had a heart attack, although there was speculation he was murdered. His body was cremated without an autopsy.