Khmer Rouge Shows Pol Pot's Corpse

Cheating pursuers who believed they were days away from capturing him for trial, toppled Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot died peacefully in his sleep, evading prosecution in the deaths of as many as 2 million countrymen. He was 73.

Pol Pot died of heart failure Wednesday in a jungle hut on the Thai border, even as the last diehard members of his vanquished movement were moving toward surrendering him to an international tribunal.

The Khmer Rouge and the Thai military showed an Associated Press photographer the body Thursday, seeking to ease doubts about the often-rumored death.

The man who led the murdererous reign of terror will escape a trial for genocide, a trial that seemed to be about to happen. In 1975, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge guerrilla forces overthrew the corrupt U.S.-backed government in Phnom Penh. They sealed off the country and began three and a half years of terror, reports CBS News Correspondent Bruce Dunning. They emptied the cities and forced people to work as slave labor on mammoth agriculture projects.

As many as 2 million Cambodians died, tortured to death, starved, or executed for as simple an offense as as wearing glasses. They gave the world a new term for terror: the killing fields.

Twenty years ago, Vietnamese troops invaded Cambodia. They chased Pol Pot into the jungles. The guerrillas remained a threat, but time and no success weakened them. Two years ago, the Khmer Rouge turned on Pol Pot and made him their prisoner. Still, he remained unrepentant.

"I did not join the resistance movement to kill people, to kill the nation," Pol Pot said, in a rare 1997 interview. "My conscience is clear."

But Cambodian King Norodom Sihanouk, who was deposed by the Khmer Rouge, lost five of his children and 14 grandchildren in the killing fields. He recently called Pol Pot "one of the most powerful monsters ever created by humanity."

In the end, Pol Pot was a prisoner of his own men, who were offering to turn him over for trial in exchange for a peace deal.

Pol Pot's wife discovered his body when she went to arrange the mosquito netting around him for the night, said Non Nou, his Khmer Rouge jailer.

"At 12 midnight, his wife came to us" sobbing, Non Nou said. "She learned that her husband was dead when she was tying the net for him. He died in a hut built for him after he lost his power."

Non Nou said Pol Pot's body would be kept for one or two days before a traditional Cambodian funeral. "Wait and see," he said when asked if journalists or outsiders would be allowed to attend.

©1998 CBS Worldwide Corp. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report