Last Khmer Rouge leaders guilty of genocide, get life terms

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- The last surviving leaders of the Khmer Rouge regime that ruled Cambodia in the 1970s, when their reign of terror was responsible for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people, were convicted Friday by an international tribunal of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan were top leaders in a regime that forced residents out of the cities into the countryside, where they laboured under brutal conditions in giant agricultural co-ope