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After the fall of the Cambodian government in 1975, the Communist Party, under the leadership of Pol Pot, came to power and renamed the State the Democratic Kampuchea. An armed conflict broke out with Vietnam, which lasted until 1979. From 1975 until 1979, Pol Pot and the Communist Party of Kampuchea sought to establish a revolutionary State and introduced a policy of ‘smashing’ their enemies, a form of physical and psychological destruction that consisted of arbitrary detention, torture and execution. This policy lead to the deaths of an estimated two million people.

The Accused, Ieng Thirith, was the highest-ranking female in the regime, Pol Pot’s sister-in-law and the wife of Ieng Sary, the regime’s former Foreign Minister. Ieng Thirith was indicted in 2010 on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide for her role in the events. In September 2012, on the basis of repeated examinations by multiple medical experts, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia found the now 80-year-old Ieng Thirith unfit to stand trial due to her dementia and released her subject to certain conditions. Although the charges have not been withdrawn, a trial is unlikely to happen in the future considering her age and mental state.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a Pakistani of Kuwait birth, is the self-confessed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks on the United States which claimed the lives of nearly 3000 people.

Captured in Pakistan in 2003, he has been in United States custody, most recently at Guantanamo Bay, ever since. Mohammed, along with four other 9/11 planners, were charged and tried before a United States Military Commission in 2008 until charges were dropped in 2010. Following a failed attempt to transfer the five co-defendants to new York to stand trial before a civilian federal court, they were indicted once again in February 2011. Their trial is currently underway before the Military Commission at Guantanamo Bay.