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Ieng Sary (Khmer: អៀង សារី; 24 October 1925 – 14 March 2013) was a co-founder and senior member of the Khmer Rouge. He was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kampuchea led by Pol Pot and served in the 1975–79 government of Democratic Kampuchea as foreign minister and deputy prime minister. He was known as "Brother Number Three" as he was third in command after Pol Pot and Nuon Chea. His wife, Ieng Thirith (née Khieu), served in the Khmer Rouge government as social affairs minister. Ieng Sary was arrested in 2007 and was charged with crimes against humanity but died of heart failure before the case against him could be brought to a verdict.
Biography
Ieng Sary was denounced as one of those responsible for the deaths of more than a million people during the Cambodian Genocide in his role as the deputy prime minister for foreign affairs and as Pol Pot’s brother-in-law. He studied with Pol Pot in Phnom Penh and then in Paris. There he joined the Communist Party and married Khieu Thirith, whose sister later wed Pol Pot. After the Khmer Rouge seized power in 1975, Ieng Sary used his new government post and his image as a respected intellectual to persuade others to return from exile to Cambodia, where they were arrested, tortured, and often killed. When the Khmer Rouge was overthrown by invading Vietnamese forces in 1979, Ieng Sary fled to the countryside.
He unexpectedly defected in 1996, along with more than 1,000 rebel troops under his command, and negotiated peace with King Norodom Sihanouk, who pardoned him. In 2007, however, Ieng Sary, his wife, and several others were indicted for crimes against humanity by a special tribunal. At the time of his death in a Phnom Penh hospital, Ieng Sary was still in detention awaiting trial.