PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Khmer Rouge "Brother Number Two" Nuon Chea blamed foreigners on Friday for Cambodia's current ills, thereby refusing to acknowledge the legacy of Pol Pot's murderous regime at the U.N.-backed "Killing Fields" tribunal.
"But difficulties remain due to the influence of foreign countries that are hindering Cambodia's growth," he said without elaborating.
An estimated 1.7 million people were executed or died of torture, disease and starvation under the ultra-Maoist regime as Pol Pot's dream of creating an agrarian peasant utopia descended into the nightmare of the "Killing Fields".
The court is expected to rule on Nuon Chea's bail request in several days. He is highly unlikely to be freed.
Pol Pot died in 1998 in the final Khmer Rouge redoubt of Anlong Veng on the Thai border.
